jon hopkins – Piano Versions

Jon Hopkins announces 'Piano Versions' EP, shares Roger & Brian Eno cover

Jon-Hopkins-by-Steve-Gullick

Jon Hopkins will release a new EP, Piano Versions, on April 16 digitally and July 2
physically via Domino. Much like 2014’s Asleep Versions, this is a collection of ambient covers of songs by Roger & Brian Eno, Luke Abbott, and James
Yorkston, as well as his cover of Thom Yorke’s “Dawn Chorus” from last year. The howle EP features an upright piano as its central instrument.

“Piano Versions is four minimal, ambient piano covers of songs I have loved for a long time that come from very different places,” says Hopkins. “It seems to me that melody is universal and the ones that I really connect to shine out irrespective of genre or context, whether from techno, folk or whatever. I loved the simplicity of having my old upright piano be the centre of a whole record for the first time. But the importance of letting the outside world into the recordings is as present for me as ever, so there are layers of incidental noise, bird song, the sound of someone washing up in the studio kitchen – whatever was going on outside my room is included and even accentuated. I want people to hear not just the recordings but to feel how it felt to be there and make them. It was a deep experience.”

You can watch a lovely animated visualizer for his Piano Versions version of Roger and Brian Eno’s “Wintergreen,” from their 2020 album Mixing Colors, below.

jon hopkins - Piano Versions

Piano Versions EP tracklist
1. Dawn Chorus (Thom Yorke)
2. Heron (James Yorkston)
3. Modern Driveway (Luke Abbott)
4. Wintergreen (Roger and Brian Eno)