Quotes from Jon Hopkins

I've always been obsessed with contrast in records, and using harsher elements to make the quieter ones more powerful.

I was drawn to music from a super early age. At school, my ego co-opted it to some degree and I would use it to gain some sort of social credibility.

Making music has always had a therapeutic effect on me.

I have always been interested in incorporating real places into the music I make. Bringing the outside into the controlled world of recorded sound just gives life and physicality.

Sometimes I hear records that are being recorded at the absolute highest quality, and I just don't like the sound of it.

I do believe there's a human right to experiment with your consciousness, as long as you're harming no one else.

I've learnt over the years to always be thinking of titles and ideas that I try to put across with just a couple of words. It's the difficult part when you're writing things that are basically abstract.

I'm a bit snobbish about breakfast: eggs benedict, or eggs royale, or something like that. Or just some really amazing, proper brown toast with smoked salmon, lemon, and black pepper. That's a great start to the day.

Your music essentially reflects everything you do, everything you've been through, in the deepest part of you.

I was guided into piano lessons and 'guided' is a nice way of saying 'forced.' I don't regret it, but I think music theory as a concept doesn't work.

I always make sure there's something for the audience to connect to, in terms of my movements relating to the sounds being heard.

I went to a hypnotherapist and learned how to hypnotize myself and explored orthogenic training, how to relax each part of your body.

If I've made something really serene... well, if everything is like that, it's like having too much icing on your cake. You need something else under it, some kind of grounding. It's like if you're making a film, you can't have only happy moments, or else they become meaningless.

The process of repeating a rhythm while it gently evolves has an incredible effect on the brain, or on mine anyway.

I just love the hypnosis of a single bass drum.

When I did 'Immunity,' even though I did a film score at the beginning and also at the end, I was left uninterrupted during the middle bit. I got a good year of just writing and focusing. That, to me, is when I make the best stuff.

Whenever I've improved, gone up a level in sound-making, it's been because I've done an album.

It's extraordinary to hear from people who are bereaved, or gone through a divorce, and they still take the time to tell me how a certain track or album helped them through tough times, or kept them sane.

Ever since I got a job in Imogen Heap's touring band when I was 17, there have been moments in my career that I can't quite believe really happened.

Meditation gives you back one or two sleep cycles every time you do it. Do it every day and it goes quite a long way towards helping insomnia.

The first thing I remember hearing was just the dance music that was in the charts when I was growing up. I don't remember many of the names of specific tracks - they were just kind of early acid house things.

I love exploring the hypnotic elements of music, and because of that there are very long tracks on 'Immunity.'

I have an obsession with making an album rather than a collection of tracks. For me it's like making a film - it's the perfect length of time to tell a story.

The track 'Open Eye Signal,' when you hear that choir sound come in, that's actually me singing but sped up and with huge reverb and overlayered harmonies.