Jon Hopkins

“Maybe I'm just stubborn about learning new things - I can't stand learning new programs - but any sound I can imagine, I can make with SoundForge. And I'm using the old version, like 4.5 from 1999. I use it for every sound.”

“It is funny how we talk about nature as this separate entity when we are nature, and nature is us.”

“I'm not interested in making an album that's just dark and pummelling for an hour, nor am I interested in making a beatless record from start to finish.”

“That's the thing with electronic music, you set up systems to bring in an accident, to bring in quirks you didn't choose, but you still will have had to set up systems.”

“My own personality is fairly optimistic and generally very happy, but like everyone else I've been through difficult stuff, particularly in my teenage years, where I experienced enough melancholia to feed any number of electronic records.”

“I just love the hypnosis of a single bass drum.”

“I'm very impulsive and I always had a belief in instinct leading the way.”

“I tend to listen to podcasts while running. I don't like to listen to music because my brain would try to get me to run in time with it.”

“When I was 23, I felt like I was further back than when I was 21. After two solo albums for this small indie label Just Music, they'd gotten no real profile. So I kind of turned away from the solo thing a bit.”

“I'm never really conscious of what I'm being influenced by when I'm writing.”

“You can only make the best thing you can make, and if it offends purists, or angers certain critics, you can only have done your best.”

“I have an obsession with making an album rather than a collection of tracks. For me it's like making a film - it's the perfect length of time to tell a story.”

“Transcendental meditation in particular is very useful in terms of unlocking those deeper parts of the subconscious where ideas are floating.”

“I was always fascinated particularly with synths: how they looked and stuff that when you're a kid you're like this is the most incredible thing in the world just to play.”

“Ironically, my tastes aren't that experimental, and I wouldn't describe my music on the surface as being overtly experimental, either.”

“I think there's a spiritual element to dancing in general. There's a reason why in every culture, dancing seems to be in our DNA.”

“I got this pretend grass stuff called LazyLawn on my roof. Now I can go out on my terrace in bare feet, and it looks exactly like a lawn. This is what science should be for.”

“I've always lived in my head, which is very easy to do when you live and work in a city.”

“Singularity' goes through a process of purification and signification. If you listen to it, you can hear quite a chaotic and disruptive beginning and by the end, you're in such an opposite zone.”

“As a teenager, you don't really have restraint.”