Born in Kingston upon Thames in 1979, musician and producer Jon Hopkins studied piano at the junior department of the Royal College of Music. He played keyboards for Imogen Heap before releasing his solo debut album Opalescent in 2001. His subsequent albums include the Mercury-nominated Immunity, the Grammy-nominated Singularity and 2021’s Music for Psychedelic Therapy. His soundtrack for the 2010 film Monsters was nominated for an Ivor Novello award and he has collaborated on various projects with Brian Eno and Coldplay. Hopkins lives in London. His seventh album, Ritual, is out on 30 August via Domino.
1. TV
How to Change Your Mind (Netflix)
This series, based on a book by Michael Pollan, is a guide to the new science behind psychedelics that has emerged after decades of bans. These medicines have been a very important tool in my life – I made an album inspired by them – and I feel Pollan is a perfect bridge builder, approaching the subject in a rational and meticulous way. The series covers a lot of the same ground as the book, but you actually get to see and hear people whose lives have been transformed by medicines such as psilocybin, which can help with treatment-resistant depression and end-of-life care. It’s very moving.
2. Bar
Verdant Schooners Beach Bar and Taproom, St Agnes beach, Cornwall
This is a very special place. I became familiar with Verdant brewery a few years ago – they make a hazy IPA that I feel they do better than any other brewery. Now they’ve opened a taproom overlooking an extraordinary beach in Cornwall, in a wild location that’s quite hard to get to. They’ve got all the fresh, unpasteurised Verdant beers on tap, which is a dream, and there’s an amazing pizza chef. Sitting there as the sun goes down, it feels like one of the greatest spots on Earth to have a beer.
3. Place
Esalen Institute, Big Sur, California
I’d heard about this place for many years and was aware that people like Ram Dass and Terence McKenna once taught there. Then, during a month-long trip in California, I got to spend two days there – a friend who grew up at Esalen took me. The institute has hot-spring baths where you just sit and soak for hours in water that’s extremely rich in minerals. You can get massages on the deck with waves crashing beneath you and condors flying overhead. And you end up having lots of interesting conversations. I left feeling purified and completely present.
4. Book
The Frank Book by Jim Woodring
A friend showed me this book when I was 18 or 19. It might look like a childish comic but it comes, I think, from the same place as a lot of David Lynch’s films – it has a dreamworld logic that cannot be put into words. The central character is a cat-like figure called Frank who goes about his adventures, which are often terrifying and freakish, but there are beautiful moments as well. There’s an antagonist called Whim, who has a head like a crescent moon. I once showed it to someone who said: “Oh my God, I’ve seen that in my nightmares.”
5. Food
The Old Airport Road Food Centre, Singapore
Whenever I’d go to Australia on tour, I’d always stop in Singapore on the way home to go and eat. This was the first hawker centre I was taken to by friends who live there, and it’s just incredible. In Singapore these places are much more appealing than the fancy restaurants. All the stalls are run by people who have made just one dish for decades – Hainanese chicken rice, or omelette with deep-fried oysters – and it’s just a completely perfect version. I would eat this food over a fancy meal any day.
6. Practice
This has been one of the biggest forces of change in my life and it’s great to see it becoming more widespread – James Nestor’s book Breath blew it open for a lot of people. I was introduced to breathwork through Kundalini meditation back in 2001 and later got into the Wim Hof method. These days I mainly practice Patrick McKeown’s techniques for downregulating the nervous system through long, slow nasal breathing. With breath you can control your state to quite an amazing degree. It’s a simple, calming tool to cope with the madness of the modern era.
7. Music
This is an album that changed how I listened to music. It takes the form of a ceremonial experience, perhaps involving ayahuasca, and it uses a lot of field recordings. My friend Dan played it to me during some of our own medicinal experiences and I couldn’t believe that someone had managed to translate such a complex thing into music. When you lie there and listen to the whole thing, particularly if you’re in an altered state of consciousness, you start to realise that this guy is sort of a genius, a shamanic master, a one-off. It deserves to be heard.
