Jon Hopkins - Music and Psychedelic Therapy

Jon Hopkins: ‘I would have a ketamine session and return with notes’

The Grammy-nominated artist created his new album to complement psychedelic therapy. He tells Kevin E G Perry about making music in a remote Ecuadorian cave and listening to what plants have to tell us

Jon Hopkins found himself attached to a thin rope being lowered 200ft into an ancient cave system deep in the Amazonian jungle of Ecuador.

For his next record, he wanted to move in a new direction, “far away from a cosmic party or a set of festival bangers”. So he turned his gaze inward, taking inspiration from meditation, which he has practised since he was 21, and his experiences with DMT, the active ingredient in ayahuasca, a powerful psychedelic brew that Amazonian tribes have been using in spiritual ceremonies for centuries. It was these influences, coupled with his time at Tayos, that led to the creation of a new album unlike any he’s made before, Music for Psychedelic Therapy, a gorgeous musical voyage that draws on ambient, drone and classical music – as well as the sounds of the natural world – and features not a single drum beat.

He had begun to think about the record he was working on in terms of the burgeoning field of psychedelic therapy, which recent clinical trials have suggested could revolutionise the way we treat a variety of mental-health conditions such as depression and PTSD. Music is an essential component of psychedelic therapy, used by therapists to guide a patient’s journey while under the influence. As Hopkins knows from his travels in the Amazon, this concept easily pre-dates modern medicine. “If you were to ask a traditional ayahuasca shaman: ‘Would you do this in silence?’ they’d say no!” he points out. “Vibration is everything, and music is just vibration, so that’s how you guide somebody.”

Jon Hopkins: ‘I would have a ketamine session and return with notes’

"making music in a remote Ecuadorian cave and listening to what plants have to tell us"

If plants make music, it strongly suggests that plant societies have or share mind.  Music as an activity requires composition, expression and creative emotional release.

If plants make music, it strongly suggests that plant societies have or share mind.  Music as an activity requires composition, expression and creative emotional release.

I'm not sure that was quite what I got from reading the article.

There are ambient sounds used, including birdsong, running water and the creatures of the rainforest calling to each other.

The reference to plants I think was more related to the plant-based ayahuasca and mushroom-based brews, both of which then impact the mental journey of the human participants. There's no doubt that Hopkins has been on some deep inner journeys, though at the end of the newspaper article it sounds a lot more like a message on ecology and caring for our planet, which is a more conventional take on things than perhaps I expected.

I'm not sure that was quite what I got from reading the article.

There are ambient sounds used, including birdsong, running water and the creatures of the rainforest calling to each other.

The reference to plants I think was more related to the plant-based ayahuasca and mushroom-based brews, both of which then impact the mental journey of the human participants. There's no doubt that Hopkins has been on some deep inner journeys, though at the end of the newspaper article it sounds a lot more like a message on ecology and caring for our planet, which is a more conventional take on things than perhaps I expected.

I wonder what might make it any different to any other New Age music.  I'm interested in listening just to find out.

I wonder what might make it any different to any other New Age music.  I'm interested in listening just to find out.

Well, it might not be that different. In the past I've bought one or two records based on extravagant descriptions, only to find the end result quite ordinary. One can always hope to be pleasantly surprised...

It doesn't sound spectacular to me although it's a little different in places to standard New Age music.  I have heard quite a lot of similar stuff before.