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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Promise of first two albums fulfilled...(back to serious reviewing), 25 May 2009
Contact Note and Opalescent are excellent albums, but I must confess I only gave them four stars as I felt they didn't really stretch the genre too far. Sure there are moments of divine beauty ,"otherness", drift, "shoegaze"( a term I find hard to like )...but still at times things were a little too safe, the triphop tv-ad like beat a little over-used.
With Insides Jon Hopkins cuts lose- everything from hard beat electronica to folk, from pulsing ambient dark trance to traditional Japanese instrumentation is used to explore new ground with enough interest to captivate most fans of the previous two albums...Think Ulrich Schnauss meets the better "soft" tracks by Plaid (Sincetta, Zamami without going too far/experimental/nuts like plaid can), but with Jon Hopkins' effortless, smooth arrangement. It like the album I hoped Plaid had made..beautiful but without the random noodling...Low Places is utter genius...this is music that moves, takes you, haunts you...
I love it, but the wife finds some bits a little edgy/ too electronic as Jon experiments with breakbeat/jazz percussion patterns, some with hardcore analogue synth sounds, so be warned spa owners and new agers...its not all smooth going. If you like an "edge" to chilled music then its here...every so often deft touches of piano smooth the buzz.
For anyone with an open mind and an appreciation of really beautiful music I highly recommend this album...something for a seriously good pair of headphones and no interruptions...Schnauss, Plaid, Port-Royal,Cocteaus/Guthrie/Rumskib types,Lunz, ambient, chilled electronica fans please enjoy...
ps For anyone disappointed in Jon Hopkins' new exploratory direction there is an ep of three tracks more akin to his pevious material, one track of which "fairytale" is utterly beautiful and highly recommended..
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
State of the Art, 13 Mar 2010
Take out the mini-headphones and listen to this on proper speakers that move some air. This is a fabulous sounding recording - lots of low end and fascinating detail.
Though some of the tracks lapse into over-reliance on macho drums to drive the tracks most sustain themselves with beautiful colours and transitions and, most important of all, some compelling musical ideas. "The Low Places" in particular is haunting and uplifting in equal measure. The soft piano timbre and ambient detail - the creaking piano stall, traffic outside the window, the car horn that turns into a strand of harmonic detail (all of which may be real or contrived) - superb imaginative work that feels very contemporary.
No vocals, some well recorded solo strings and a spectrum of electronic and found sounds to tantalise the most jaded palette. It works as a complete album listening experience and bears repeated listening.
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
hair in my porrige, 20 Aug 2009
I loved the previous 2 albums, but this one troubled me. It had the same sublmie melodic music as in the previous 2 but he has added what to me is an intrusive glitchy sound, way too foreground and which I find just irritating. I have deleted tracks 3 and 5 which are the worse offenders, and the rest of the album is lovely. After track 6 the glitches and squeaks, and horrible breakbeat rhythm which I also do not like, fade into the background. Of course he is the artist, and free to do what he wants, but I do hope this is not a new direction. I am the listener and free not to purchase what I don't like. I don't like Aphix Twin, so if you do, maybe it is your thing. I like Jon Hopkins and the beautiful music he makes. So a curates egg. If he were to make a non glitchy version of this cd I would buy that. To me the glitches just got in the way. I just wanted to reach in and pluck them out so I could listen to the music without being slightly irritated.
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