Listen: Jon Hopkins' "Scene Suspended"

Born in Kingston upon Thames in 1979, musician and producer Jon Hopkins studied piano at the Royal College of Music before setting his sights on electronic music. He has since then churned out five studio albums, including the critical smash Singularity back in 2018, not to mention a long list of collaborations with artists such as Brian Eno, King Creosote, Coldplay (Viva la Vida was co-produced by Eno and Hopkins) and Kelly Lee Owens. In an interview with The Guardian, Hopkins mentioned how Singularity was an album he wanted to make 15 years ago, but instead chose to wait for technology to catch up (he uses a program called Ableton) to explore what he had exactly in mind. "Trying to work out how to get that on to an electronic album without it sounding ridiculous was one of the fun challenges," he said. Viewed in that light, Singularity was also an hour-long ode to spiritual transcendence, an exercise in psychedelia that's both techno and choral, while also keeping it unpredictable, the chord progressions building and disintegrating in irregular patterns, so much so that it feels like diving into a pool of relaxed grooves. Scene Suspended, the new song from Hopkins, finds the electronic producer reverting to his roots, crafting a stripped-back tune filled with piano and string sections that's doubtless beautiful and serene. Listen below -