Singles

Jon Hopkins - Light Through The Veins

Richard Wink 27/04/2009

Rating: 1.5/5

Despite the fact that Jon Hopkins has worked with some big, no scratch that, some massive names, the likes of Herbie Hancock and Coldplay, and has been endorsed by the Godfather of ambience Brian Eno, it is really hard to warm to 'Light Through The Veins'.

Everything I have read about Hopkins is jam packed with hyperbole; there are enough superlatives to suggest that he is the second coming. Yes, I will concede there is an ornate delicateness to his composition; undoubtedly he is a skilled musician. The trouble is that 'Light Through The Veins'<.i> is boring. This point is hammered home on the Radio Edit and two unnecessarily indifferent remixes.

Ambient music should, by my humble definition, be bold, textured, and either soothes or sends chills through your spine. 'Light Through The Veins' glides along carefully like an elevator going up through the floors of a sterile medical facility, passing through me like a ghost.

The rather overbearing bio on Hopkins' website explains how he was a childhood piano prodigy, who in his teens got a bit rebellious and dwelled in the drum n' bass scene, he sounds like a lost Tenenbaum sibling. The amazing thing is that despite his prodigious talents he creates something so effortlessly bland; serves him right for spending too much time hanging around with Coldplay.

Release date: 27/04/09