Jon Hopkins – Singularity (2018)

Electronic music has been ridiculously disappointing in recent years- too much repetition and lack of fresh innovative ideas. We’ve seen the cycle happen before when a music scene starts to turn inward, focusing on past glories reproducing sounds with “authenticity“. It’s a prescription for boredom. And electronic music is never more unbearable then when its boring.

Besides, I promised myself I will try to get away from my diet of experimental electronic music, focusing more on other areas of sound exploration, like drone, dub, modern psychedelia and more guitar orientated formats, all of which seemed to be taking bold steps into the future of music, rhythms and beats (I was so certain of all, just yesterday).

But great music is full of surprises, and creativity is not the whim of a overly opinionated music critic. Singularity is Jon Hopkins’ 2018 follow up record to his minimalist techno classic Immunity (2013). Did I call Immunity a classic?

Immunity is an album that comes along once in a generation. Like Aphex Twin‘s Selected Ambient Works 85–92 or Can‘s Future Days, Immunity defined the parameters of what modern experimental music could do as we move into the future. A clue of what could be our not so distant future, as if Allah himself allowed us a quick glimpse into it. Listening to Immunity for the first time was a feast of sound, the music full of complex bursts and bleeps; clusters of noise that were modern, progressive and adventurous with a decidedly human voice.

The atmosphere of that classic was exciting and explorative. As Hopkins would have it, on the surface the music was simple – the possibilities of a single night in town. Of course, the depths and layers of the music went much deeper than that entertaining cover story. Where Immunity was a single night out, Singularity feels like a season cycle.

Singularity begins where the optimism of Immunity’s vision begins to get a little confused. Musically, it moves into a dark sonic pallet, creating colors, shading and textures of sound that seem to ask more questions – during an age when answers are desperately needed.

For example, there’s no questioning the beauty of the night sky. The universality of its beauty and mystery are pondered by boys and girls across the globe, from Detroit to Cologne to Mexico City and back again. It’s our intellectual and emotional responses to the vastness of a starry night that allow us to share different experiences intellectually and spiritually. In other words, Singularity takes a decidedly deeper and stranger introspective voyage then Immunity.

There is a richness in the darker favor of the album, with its search going deeper as the colors and sound grow muted and sparse. From the immediate and easy to love breezy techno through the shaded brown and green texture of its ambient experiments, the music here grows ambivalent and undefined, allowing each of our individual experiences to redefine the musical depth with each listen.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with the vastness of Hopkins’ vision. At times the density of the sound gathers around you and the distant beats in the background of the music move forward and across the spectrum. But remember, this isn’t ear-candy. Part of what makes the music here complex is the willingness to put the listener in uncomfortable and unorthodox situations. Truly using the sound elements the way roc music would attack with lyrical content or a sharp guitar solo.

The music on Singularity is cerebral but never detached and could very well change the way you look at music from this moment for. That’s no mild boost. By the time you get to the near end of the record with the track “Echo Dissolve”, a simple melodic piano pattern, you have been taken to a decidedly different head space. Beautiful and a bit sad, but also deeply self-aware and enlightened.

by Shawn Ciavattone