It’s been a few years since we’ve had a new Radiohead album, but Thom Yorke dropped a solo effort, Anima, just last year. Jon Hopkins was a fan of that, and now he has shared his rendition of a highlight from that record, “Dawn Chorus.”
It’s a relatively straightforward recording, led by just Hopkins’ piano and some synth embellishments. Hopkins says of the song and his version of it, which he recorded in one take on a piano he’s had since childhood:
“I felt such bliss the first time I heard this piece — it seemed so mysterious and hypnotic, oblique but warm. I thought there was so much beauty in that chord sequence that there was room to explore it on the piano and see what grew from it. One day in early April when everything was particularly quiet and surreal outside, I went into my studio for the first time in weeks and ended up recording the whole thing in one take. I left it very raw and upfront, with just some sub bass and vocal drones in the background. The whole thing was done in a day and was a very cathartic experience.”
Hopkins is a couple years removed from his most recent album, as Singularity dropped in 2018.
Listen to Hopkins’ cover of “Dawn Chorus” above.
