Graham Reid | | <1 min read
British electronica artist Hopkins' discreetly understated third album Insides four years ago deservedly won followers in cinema, downbeat, trip-tronica and chill-out rock.
It was less an album than something which just “was”.
Consequently Hopkins is now on film scores, alongside Brian Eno in the credible ambient-cum-atmospheric world, favoured at UK arts festivals, probably a candidate for a Late Night Tales compilation and . . . these days he just “is”.
But this album also just “is”.
And it isn't much . . . . unless you hear it as another soundtrack calling-card because the slightly disconcerting Breathe This Air and Abandon Window would fit when astronauts go about their lonely business as our blue, cloud-covered orb is magically outside the spacecraft window.
Lovely, evocative, just right . . . and we've been here before.
Elsewhere sonic clicks, glitches, electronic washes and simulated spacesuit breathing are all very well.
But where Eno once imaginatively created music for films which didn't exist, Hopkins – now Eno's protege – gives the impression he's already seen the footage he hears.
So it's deja-vu.
One overseas writer called this danceable.
No disrespect, but so is the sound of a quiet photocopier.
Pass.
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