Emotional Spac………………………es

I like Christmas. I like reconvening my family. I like giving presents. I like the barricade of lights we employ against the cold dark every year. I like marzipan, a lot.

My very favourite thing of all at Christmas is a solitary pleasure*. Our Christmas tree lives in the room where my records are, this year making it borderline impossible to listen to anything from K to L**. My very favourite thing to do is to sit and listen to music in a darkened room just lit by the white tree lights and the flicker of those lights outside the window. I find that there’s a sense of solemnity and ritual about it that suits the season.

I own a surprising amount of Christmas LPs, this isn’t one of those. Jon Hopkins Piano Versions is an EP of cover versions performed on some instrument, or other back in 2022. It is bright, minimal, cold but not unpleasantly so, very much a creature of this time of year. Hell the cover even shows figures wafting around an almost bare tree in the chill Pagan moonlight, what more do you want, sleighbells? Noddy Holder? Nut roast?

I did not know the originals of any of the four tracks here, Thom Yorke ‘Dawn Chorus’, Luke Abbott ‘Modern Driveway’, James Yorkston ‘Heron’ or Brian & Roger Eno’s ‘Winterlong’. I have listened to them all since and far prefer these superior versions.

We open with ‘Dawn Chorus’, the piano gently questing and almost shyly suggesting the skeletal outline of a tune. The piano is so beautifully recorded, you can hear its own internal resonance. Subtle electronic effects well up to a point where they just become audible and then fade away again, leaving the piano alone and pristine in its own space. It is a remarkable track, especially to nail all it does at 3.24.

‘Heron’^ is busier, less clean, more au naturel, sounding as though it was both recorded outside at daybreak amidst the reeds of an estuary and then recorded and re-recorded until what we have is at least a 14th generation copy. The sound of the recording becomes almost its own accompanying instrument here in a way I find inexplicably moving.

The longest cut here is ‘Modern Driveway’, which only weighs in at 4.07. I mention that solely because of how quickly and thoroughly Hopkins nails the mood and ambience of each track here, the type of thing a lesser conjurer would scrabble about with for a side of an LP at least. This track is wonderfully slow, spare and full of spaces where the listener’s emotions can rise up to meet the music halfway.

‘Wintergreen’ is as delicate as the traceries of frost on a windowpane, the curl of a frozen leaf and the sweet tendrils of a loved one’s breath on a December walk^^. This is an exercise in stretching the space between notes to extremes, a series of acts of musical brinkmanship. That the last 25 seconds of ‘Wintergreen’ are almost silent is a natural progression.

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If you bought music by the note Piano Versions would cost you about 28p. It remains a bargain though, it is an EP that sounds perfect for this time of year, particularly under the Christmas lights. The only drawback being a running time of just over 15 minutes, that the music is so affecting and complete is testimony to Hopkins’ artistry.

Hopkins had originally wanted to become a classical concert pianist and I can see this in his touch and feel for these tunes. Sadly it all went wrong for him and a glittering career as an electronic composer and producer beckoned instead, poor guy.

Piano Versions is absolutely sublime, buy it.

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My copy of Piano Versions is a pre-ordered, blue vinyl copy. The sleeve is robust and as pleasing as the contents. In the way of all such things you can pick up an identical copy for less than I paid for mine; so pleased for you, SO pleased.

1261 Down.

*not that one, this time.

**sorry festive Kate Bush and/or Lemon Jelly fans. The former of which is a shame because 50 Words For Snow is a great winter listen. If only music was available on a smaller, more practical, compact format!

^rumour has it Lou Reed never forgave the rest of Velvet Underground for misspelling ‘Heron’ on their debut LP. It was meant to be a song about his favourite long-legged birds, not an ode to junkie excess, disgust. True story.

^^Southern hemispheroidians, please adjust for your own climate here, engage imaginations.