Jon Hopkins review – recital turns rave as fans embrace one last gig

Brighton DomeWhile his music has been criticised as being too cerebral to connect with on a visceral level, try telling that to this crowdSunday evening and the atmosphere in Brighton Dome feels curiously subdued. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that you can’t escape current events. Jon Hopkins’ most recent album, 2018’s Singularity, unexpectedly made the Top 10. This sold-out gig is nevertheless pockmarked with empty seats. There seems every chance that this is the last concert anyone here will be going to for the foreseeable future, but some ticket holders have clearly decided that even that isn’t incentive enough to leave home. Or perhaps a muted atmosphere generally prevails at gigs by Hopkins, a sometime Coldplay and Brian Eno collaborator whose music exists at a distinctly cerebral nexus where contemporary classical meets soundtrack-y ambience and egghead techno that would once have earned the frightful generic label intelligent dance music. It’s where profile-boosting appearances on Spotify curated playlists called things such as 4am Chillout and Atmospheric Calm meet generative sound installations. Continue reading…
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