Almost certainly before we spoke in words, we hummed and drummed. It is the memory of this bodily necessity that is recovered with RITUAL, the new album from Jon Hopkins — a summons, a cure, a machine “for opening portals within your inner world, for unlocking things that are hidden and buried,” to use his terms. With RITUAL, Hopkins makes the Reethaus into an altar, returning us to the ancient thud of feet on the ground, to memories of a possible future, to the flickering light on the cave wall.
RITUAL is a soundscape structured as a ceremonial epic, tracing an arc over 41 minutes that takes us from a preverbal state, pregnant with possibility, into life, death, and life thereafter. Making use of powers of repetition and variation honed over his 22-year career, Hopkins induces hypnosis, creating a collective listening experience that offers more than pleasure: the opportunity to find something lost in a place you didn’t know existed. The canvas is open; it is up to the listeners to breathe, bathe in resonance, and make this dream machine their own.
Following its preview at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London and before its release in August, Reethaus is pleased to present RITUAL for the first time outside of the British Isles, an early chance to engage with this modern rite through the 360-degree spatial audio programmed in partnership with MONOM. After the listening experience, Jon Hopkins will sit in conversation with Heiko Hoffmann to discuss his creative process.
