Jon Hopkins 10-year Anniversary of 'Immunity'

Today is the 10-year anniversary of Jon Hopkins’ seminal fourth album Immunity. To celebrate, a newly remastered version of the record is available to stream now. There will also be a special physical release on October 6th including the first ever colour pressing of the album on vinyl.

A confident, dramatic record defined by an acute sense of physicality and place, Immunity felt and still feels, like the accompaniment to a journey of creativity, a trip inside Hopkins’ mind. It brought together everything he had learnt and experienced already but also paved the way for the evolution of his future records, most recently, 2021’s Music For Psychedelic Therapy.

Immunity was a turning point in Hopkins’ career. Previously, he had been an elusive character, known to most as an expert producer, Ivor Novello-nominated composer of film scores, remixer and long-term collaborator of Brian Eno and Coldplay. On its release in 2013, Immunity announced itself as a powerful, multi-faceted beast, packed with the most aggressively dancefloor-focussed music Hopkins had ever made. However, Immunity was never just about the techno behemoths - of which there were several. Hopkins wanted the album to help people to reach different states of mind. From graceful and mournful piano notes, stirring choral drones, he was always seeking new melodic routes to aid this. His tendency to use physical, real-world sounds as the basis for many of the album’s rhythms allowed him to craft one of the most human electronic albums of the decade.

Jon Hopkins: “Immunity was written between late 2010 and early 2012. I poured everything into it, taking so much care over every element. This record changed my life. I went from playing 500 cap venues to 5000 cap in less than a year. The whole thing was a whirlwind, and has since given me the freedom to follow any creative route that comes to me. Making and releasing it was a very special experience.

I have never had anything I’ve made remastered before, but had occasionally wondered if the loud mastering on Immunity is something I would still have done today. Guy Davie, who worked on the original, returned to the pre-masters, and we tried to do a slightly more subtle job. However, immediately it felt like it lost that sense of ‘pressure’ that I’ve come to realise is an important characteristic of the album, which is particularly present during the heavy tracks. I was suddenly wary of messing with it, creatively changing something that people were familiar with and that had become important to them. So we went back to the original settings, but added a subtle expander at the end to open it out a little. The result feels like it has a little more breathing space, whilst retaining the grit and intensity it always had. This re-master also gave us the opportunity to run it through Guy’s EMI desk at 96k for the first time.”

Upcoming live dates

• 11th June – Parklife Festival, Manchester
• 18th June – Beyond the Pale, Wicklow
• 30th July – Gezgin Salon Festival, Istanbul
• 19th August – Field Day, London
• 29th August – BBC Proms @ Royal Albert Hall, London
• 30th September – Portola Festival, San Franciso, CA