Domino
2009
Insides
About This Album
Jon Hopkins got a pretty big résumé boost in 2008 through his production work (alongside Brian Eno and others) on Coldplay's Viva la Vida. Prior to this he had worked with Massive Attack and released two albums on small labels. His debut for Domino, 2009's Insides, is his first record that many people will hear and it's a promising, but flawed, debut. It shows that Hopkins has a firm grasp on many styles of electronic music but doesn't prove to be a master of any. He dips into ominously distorted gangsta glitch on the title track, lush big beat on "Wire," burbling orchestral dubstep on "Vessel" and icy cold IDM on "Colour Eye," and while each excursion sounds good, there is nothing much happening a fan of electronic music in its many forms hasn't heard done better before. If there is an over-riding aesthetic to Insides, it's the kind of ambient techno that labels like Instinct and artists like Pete Namlook and Irresistible Force were making in the early 1990s. He creates acoustic instruments with synthesizers and programmed beats to create very pleasant, very well-crafted pieces that don't really challenge the listener but instead create a kind of warm, fuzzy blanket of sound for them to settle into.
Track List (try tracks 2,3,5,6,9 and 10)

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