Listen to Jon Hopkins’ Meditative New Song “Singing Bowl (Ascension)”

Jon Hopkins has shared a new track. “Singing Bowl (Ascension)” was written with meditative experiences in mind, according to a press release. It features on Quiet, his 24-hour long collaborative playlist for Spotify. Have a listen below.

Hopkins says of the piece:

Like so many people I felt pretty paralysed by this situation when it
first unfolded. All my plans for the year were cancelled, and
everything felt so weird and dreamlike. But gradually I found I wanted
to create something – to find peace and perspective through making
music, as I have always done. It felt beautifully pure to just use one
acoustic sound source, and no synths. It was liberating to write
something without playing anything on a keyboard – to avoid the
familiar diatonic scale for the first time, and thus avoid any of my
own conditioned playing habits. There was a magic in setting this
generative system in motion then just letting the vibrations of this
bowl create their own world. I listened to harmonics layering on top
of harmonics for hours and was transported.

The piece follows his piano composition “Scene Suspended,” which was released earlier this year. At the end of 2019, he released a collaboration with Kelly Lee Owens. “Luminous Spaces” was originally planned as remix of Hopkins’ song “Luminous Beings” from 2018’s Singularity.

Read about Jon Hopkins in Pitchfork’s list of “The 50 Best IDM Albums of All Time.”