I'm actually a big fan of turning off my phone and ignoring it for large chunks of the day.
— Jon Hopkins
It is funny how we talk about nature as this separate entity when we are nature, and nature is us.
Overall, 'Singularity' has a certain lightness to it compared to 'Immunity.' It's less closed off; it doesn't have that claustrophobic sound.
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.
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.
I love exploring the hypnotic elements of music, and because of that there are very long tracks on 'Immunity.'
There's never been a time when there hasn't been ritualistic dancing, and I think clubbing is our modern incarnation of that.
Singularity' goes through a process of purification and signification. If you listen to it, you can hear quite a chaotic and disruptive beginning and by the end, you're in such an opposite zone.
I've always been obsessed with contrast in records, and using harsher elements to make the quieter ones more powerful.
I did classical music when I was a teenager, but the experience of performing a classical concert felt too frighteningly pristine for me to continue with it.
I don't have a huge amount of gear, but on the software side, I have a number of plug-in chains that act as abstracted versions of real instruments.
You can't allow your creative sessions to be dominated by miniscule editing processes.
Sometimes I think elements of 'Open Eye Signal' are better live. I do this really crazy stuff at the end, but I don't know if it'd translate well into recording. It would probably sound a bit too extreme.
When I was 23, I felt like I was further back than when I was 21. After two solo albums for this small indie label Just Music, they'd gotten no real profile. So I kind of turned away from the solo thing a bit.
Learning how to be calm and centered in any situation is a skill for life, whatever you do.
If you're a traveling artist, you probably experience insomnia at some point. You need things to be the right temperature, the right light... it's essential.
I prefer a long day of starting in the morning over working late into the night.
As soon as I finish meditating, I get a beautiful feeling of expanded consciousness. When I'm in this headspace I can make so much progress in my writing.
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.
I learned over the years to trust that the subconscious is going to provide guidance.
Music has always been so integral to my life. It's always been my work and my passion.
It sounds a bit pretentious, but I'm never really conscious of what I'm doing musically.
I love truly forward-thinking music, and I'm not even sure I'd describe my work as that, even.
I think there's a spiritual element to dancing in general. There's a reason why in every culture, dancing seems to be in our DNA.
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.
A lot of my creative ideas begin in the pub, talking through possibilities with collaborators.
Well, I like the idea of seeing every piece of music as fluid. I see the tracks as places almost, structures you can inhabit and explore.
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.
What kind of music keeps its relevance? That's why I purposely try and avoid any particularly current trends in electronic music. I do actively stay away from the most popular rhythms of the moment. In six weeks' time, those will sound out-of-date.
I always make sure there's something for the audience to connect to, in terms of my movements relating to the sounds being heard.
The process of repeating a rhythm while it gently evolves has an incredible effect on the brain, or on mine anyway.
Meditation is a regular part of my day, every day.
For me, the most important thing is to keep everything moving very fast, so when I have an idea, I can realize it and make it audible as soon as possible.
Maybe I'm just stubborn about learning new things - I can't stand learning new programs - but any sound I can imagine, I can make with SoundForge. And I'm using the old version, like 4.5 from 1999. I use it for every sound.
I've always lived in my head, which is very easy to do when you live and work in a city.
I'm not interested in making an album that's just dark and pummelling for an hour, nor am I interested in making a beatless record from start to finish.
Making music has always had a therapeutic effect on me.
A night out isn't just chaos and hedonism. It can be beautiful as well and there's a sadness to the end of it.
My own personality is fairly optimistic and generally very happy, but like everyone else I've been through difficult stuff, particularly in my teenage years, where I experienced enough melancholia to feed any number of electronic records.
Ironically, my tastes aren't that experimental, and I wouldn't describe my music on the surface as being overtly experimental, either.
I love that tension between machine sounds and organic sounds, and also the contrast between abrasive sounds and soft sounds.
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.
My first ever show in America was opening for Coldplay at Madison Square Garden. Nobody in that audience could have known who I was. It was almost like it was an accident, like I was in someone else's dream.
I really don't use that much stuff. I think it's good to know a few pieces of equipment very well, rather than learn new ones every time. I think it distracts from the writing process.
Well, I don't really use MIDI that much. But I do record audio around me a lot, and just layer it up and see what effect it has, without any aforethought.
You don't make this kind of music expecting to have to do TV press and stuff like that. I don't mind doing it, but it's a fairly underground type of music. You do it for the love of the music more than being a star or anything.
I'm very impulsive and I always had a belief in instinct leading the way.
I just love switching stuff off and going for a run, or sitting down and eating cake.
I tend to listen to podcasts while running. I don't like to listen to music because my brain would try to get me to run in time with it.
Sometimes I hear records that are being recorded at the absolute highest quality, and I just don't like the sound of it.