Late Night Tales - Jon Hopkins, compilation review

I slip into a candle-lit bath.

This feels like a perfect fit.

Other Late Night Tales releases often have a vibe of an afterparty, a melding of minds as records play in the wee small hours, but Jon Hopkins turn in the series feels different... more personal, more insular.

His offering is a mix for the individual.  To call it constructed is to do it a great disservice, it feels more natural than that, gently pouring from one musical movement to another, the ebbs and flows often gradual, virtually no announcement is made as one track takes the reigns from the other.

The tranquil state is thrown on occasions, vaguely psychedelic turns or disturbances that jar against the relaxed ambience, haunting and cutting a swathe through the safety of a run-of-the-mill chill-out session, because this is no run-of-the-mill chill-out session.

Jon Hopkins' acclaimed musical states are writ large across the 75 minutes, it is grandiose, yet personal, meditative, yet reaching, and I find myself still listening even once the bath water has gotten cold.

Released 2nd March on Late Night Tales

Paper Tiger - Laptop Suntan

Paper Tiger are the Gremlins that are hiding under your bed, stealing bags of Space Invaders from the kitchen and beating your high score on Tetris, playing the GameBoy in secret that you haven't been able to lay your hands on recently.

That is the mischievous nature that is played out by the hard-to-pin-down hip-hop/electro outfit hailing from Wolverhampton, embracing an old skool stylistic nature and pairing it with more experimental offerings, often calling to mind memories of 80's culture and 8bit video games.

Laptop Sunshine is a fine example of gloriously restless chill-out music, stuttering beats and bleeps nestle alongside blissful soundscapes that refuse to let it relax, with a vast range of influences pulled together in a magpie manner to fashion an irresistible downtempo kaleidoscope of sounds.

Amongst the erratic instrumentals there are also a number of guest vocalists, maintaining a cohesive balance with a fine selection of artists alongside them, Paper Tiger have crafted a fresh sounding and original release that bypasses indulgent trippy electronic noodling by using vocals as a hook to catch your attention, adding an additional layer to the already intriguing productions with a number of MCs that hark back in style to the UK's formerly prevailant garage scene.

Laptop Sunshine is an album that should belong to the street, but instead it belongs to the domain of the bedroom producer, it belongs to the retrospective throwback internet age, with Paper Tiger putting a modern twist on backpack hip-hop and sending it back to us via high speed fibre optic connections.