- Often described as "Brian Eno's protégé" or "Coldplay's producer" for the first part of his career, Jon Hopkins is now a big name on his own. That's largely thanks to his excellent 2013 album, Immunity, which earned the London producer a Mercury Prize nomination and the attendant broadsheet column inches. He's also pulled in fans with his live show, ascending festival bills to take the sort of slots once held by the likes of Groove Armada or Cinematic Orchestra.
Exactly the sort of people who mix LateNightTales, in other words. Rather than underground artists trying to impress you with their white labels, LateNightTales are carefully curated collections from established artists who, with the exception of Matt Helders of Arctic Monkeys, deliver exactly the kind of thing their records would lead you to expect. Hopkins is a classically-trained electronic producer with a sideline in film soundtracks who's done remixes and production work for Four Tet and David Holmes. So, naturally, his LateNightTales includes tracks from Four Tet and David Holmes, twilit ambient and neo-classical from A Winged Victory For The Sullen and Nils Frahm, glitchy beats from Teebs and the odd homespun folk number from Alela Diane. The overall quality of these selections is on par Hopkins' own productions. There's a sense of his classical training in the way he even makes moments of near silence, such as Jonsi and Alex's "Daniell In The Sea," sound symphonic.
Hopkins' first two albums—2001's Opalescent and 2004's Contact Note—had an inkling of what he would blossom into with 2008's Insides, but not enough to set them apart from other chill-out stuff at the time. Like those records, LateNightTales lacks the avant-garde quality of Insides and Immunity, not to mention the records Hopkins plays on his BBC radio show. But if you're after something to curl up with in the small hours, this will do just fine.
Tracklist01. Ben Lukas Boysen - Sleepers Beat Theme
02. Darkstar - Hold Me Down
03. HolyOther - YrLove
04. Teebs - Verbena Tea with Rebekah Raff
05. Nils Frahm - More
06. Songs Of Green Pheasant - I Am Daylights
07. Jonsi & Alex Daniell - In The Sea
08. Evenings - Babe
09. Letherette - After Dawn
10. Jon Hopkins - I Remember (Yeasayer cover version)
11. David Holmes - Hey Maggy
12. Alela Diane - Lady Divine
13. Four Tet - Gillie Amma I Love You
14. School Of Seven Bells - Connjur
15. Peter Broderick - And It's Alright (Nils Frahm Remix)
16. Health - Before Tigers (Gold Panda Remix)
17. Last Days - Missing Photos
18. Bibio - Down To The Sound
19. A Winged Victory For The Sullen - Requiem For The Static King 1
20. Helios - Emancipation
21. Rick Holland - I Remember (Exclusive Spoken Word Piece)