117. Drugs and Music with Jon Hopkins

·53 min·3 clips

Hopkins links MDMA, DMT, psilocybin, and ketamine to a radical shift from gentle albums to “complete disregard for conventional song structures.”

1. The Drug Science Podcast episode focuses on Jon Hopkins and his work at the intersection of drugs and music. 2. David Nutt, Jo Neill, and Dr. Hannah Thurger host Hopkins, a classically trained pianist and electronic musician, and they frame him as one of the most celebrated electronic musicians of his generation. 3. The episode asks how music, club culture, and psychedelic experience shaped Hopkins's writing and listening habits. 4. Hopkins says he was born in Kingston Hospital and grew up in Wimbledon, South West London, where music played on every drive in the family car. 5. He describes being transfixed by a friend's piano at age three or four, then teaching himself on a small practice piano at home. 6. He says formal lessons later took him through classical repertoire and concertos until about age 16 or 17. 7. He also says his real obsession was electronic composition, which started on a home computer around age 12 with drum patterns and sequencing software. 8. He credits the pre-internet era with forcing trial and error, which he says shaped a more exploratory way of working. 9. He found a record deal at 19, at a time when his music was still described as post-rockish, ambient, and very gentle. 10. He says a year playing keyboards with Imogen Heap began at 17, just after A-levels, and later sessions with David Holmes came through Leo Abrahams. 11. Hopkins says music gave him perspective, peace, and catharsis before mental health language was common in the conversation. 12. He describes using energetic music to release held tension and mentions qigong shaking as a physical practice that fits that idea. 13. He says his teenage cannabis use became unpleasant and contributed to a shy, reclusive period rather than clubbing. 14. He says club life arrived much later, after he began making music with a beat and played late-20s and early-30s shows all over the place. 15. He links MDMA experiences to trance-like music and says DMT and psilocybin changed the course of what he wrote. 16. He says those experiences, combined with TM meditation, created freedom from conditioned thinking and a reduced need for validation through success. 17. He describes 'Tails Caves' as a piece built from a descent through darkness and ascent into light, using field recordings from Mendel Kaelin of Wavepaths. 18. He says the album 'Sit Around the Fire' came from a Ram Dass talk, with Hopkins's piano responding to natural pauses and Trevor's vocals stretched into a choir-like texture. 19. The tone is conversational, reflective, and technically detailed, with Hopkins moving easily between biography, creative process, and altered states. 20. Listeners interested in electronic music, psychedelics, and creative process will get the most from it, while people wanting a short, non-technical artist chat may skip it.

As heard by us

A reflective conversation about how a record emerged from place, collaboration, and ketamine-guided listening.

Jon Hopkins uses the Drug Science conversation to sketch how a pristine habitat, the Tiles project, and later work with East Forest and a Ram Dass talk all fed into Music for Psychedelic Therapy. The record did not arrive as a neat plan.

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Why you'd press play

If you want a calm conversation about music, ketamine, and psychedelic therapy, press play.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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