Photo credit: Imogene Barron

Jon Hopkins releases new track "Forever Held" in collaboration with NASA

30th October 2024

Today, Jon Hopkins shares a brand-new track, “Forever Held”. A full orchestral piece with string arrangements by Icelandic multi-instrumentalist Ólafur Arnalds, it is an emotive and deeply peaceful piece of cinematic music which touches on themes of our Earth and its context within space.

NASA JPL collaborated with Jon Hopkins to compose the song “Forever Held” for Space for Earth, which is NASA’s first immersive experience open to the public commissioned by NASA and located at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC. The song was inspired by letters written by NASA Creative Director and artist Erica Bernhard during the creation of the installation. These letters, love letters from Earth to Space, ended in the phrase “Forever enveloped in your gravity”. These words inspired Jon’s frequent collaborator, Rick Holland, to name the song “Forever Held”.

Talking about the music, Hopkins says: “I took this opportunity to create a full orchestral piece. I wanted to make something timeless that would transmit the feeling of being ‘held’ by the Earth. I was thinking about the fragility and power of our planet, and of the human race’s role in its own destiny.”

The music video for “Forever Held”, created and directed by Erica Bernhard, displays the range of her art-science studio COVALENT Collaboratory. It is a visual evolution of the love letters between Space and Earth - humans being an inextricable part of these interconnected systems. It poetically envelops NASA imagery and data onto two motion-captured dancers: the ‘Space’ character comprised of NASA James Webb Space Telescope while the ‘Earth’ character is wrapped in NASA satellite imagery of the Earth at night, as they perform their eternal dance.

After the collaboration between NASA JPL/Erica Bernhard and Jon Hopkins in the creation of “Forever Held”, the song has continued to evolve, grow and live outside of the installation. The song, stills from its music video, the original letters and pieces of the Space for Earth installation, have been engraved and encoded onto a NanoFiche disk which will be sent to the moon as part of the Lunar Codex via NASA CLPS.

Ahead of its release today, Coldplay used “Forever Held” to open their new album Moon Music (on its title track “Moon Music”) and began their Pyramid-headlining slot at this year’s Glastonbury with the song.

Hopkins also featured on the latest iteration of Charli XCX’s Brat, contributing to “I might say something stupid” with The 1975 on Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat.

Jon Hopkins recently released his latest studio album RITUAL a 41-minute ceremonial epic built from cavernous subs, hypnotic drumming and transcendent melodic interplay. Having premiered the album to several thousand people at collective listening experiences around the globe in immersive audio ahead of its release, Hopkins is pleased to announce the first large-scale event at London’s EartH Theatre on November 11th which has already sold out. There will be a live piano performance and a Q&A with Hopkins and his collaborator 7RAYS.

Additionally, Jon will be performing at London’s Southbank Centre with Aaron and Bryce Dessner on December 6th as part of the London premiere of All of This Unreal Time featuring Oscar award winning actor Cillian Murphy. They will also be performing at Manchester’s Aviva Studios on December 7th. The film is written by Max Porter and directed by Aoife McArdle, The Dessners and Hopkins composed the film’s soundtrack. Further information for London and Manchester.

About NASA’s Space for Earth installation: The interactive physical exhibit is located in the east lobby of NASA Headquarters in Washington DC, where visitors are invited to see Earth as NASA astronauts see it from space. Open m-f, 8:30am - 5:30 pm. https://earth.gov/

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Jon Hopkins RITUAL

Album | 30th August 2024

By turns devotional, empowering and nurturing, Jon Hopkins’ forthcoming RITUAL is a 41-minute ceremonial epic built from cavernous subs, hypnotic drumming and transcendent melodic interplay.. Tense, immersive and ultimately triumphant, it is a culmination of themes explored throughout his 22-year career, and acts as the kinetic counterpart to 2021’s Music For Psychedelic Therapy.

A single piece unfolding over eight chapters, RITUAL is personified by depth and contrast. Taking ceremony, spiritual liberation and the hero's journey as inspiration, it taps into an ancient and primal energy.

Featuring long-term collaborators Vylana, 7RAYS, Ishq, Clark, Emma Smith, Daisy Vatalaro and Cherif Hashizume, RITUAL came together within the second half of 2023, but initial seeds were sown in 2022, when Hopkins was commissioned to compose for the Dreamachine* immersive experience in London created by Collective Act, in collaboration with a team of artists, scientists and philosophers. A project that felt ceremonial from the outset, this shorter piece was the embryo of RITUAL, with Hopkins gaining inspiration from the feeling of intention that is inherent in the Dreamachine space.

RITUAL is both emotionally and sonically heavy, whilst retaining a warm, live feel, where the juxtaposition between softness and intensity forms the core of the whole. So take time, prepare and immerse in RITUAL for 41 minutes of uninterrupted listening: sonic divination of the most potent form.