Jon Hop­kins and Ice­landic film com­pos­er Big­gi Hilmars dig­i­tal­ly released the sound­track of Wild­ing, via Domi­no Sound­tracks, on 16th Jan­u­ary, and there’s a phys­i­cal release due on April 3rd. The doc­u­men­tary Wild­ing was released in 2024.

Wild­ing fol­lows the sto­ry of farm­ers Isabel­la Tree and her hus­band Char­lie Bur­rell, who embarked on an envi­ron­men­tal project aimed at breath­ing new life into the fail­ing 400-year-old Knepp Estate. By remov­ing fences and allow­ing the land to return to the wild, they entrust­ed its recov­ery to a mix of ani­mals, both tame and wild. This became one of the most sig­nif­i­cant rewil­d­ing exper­i­ments in Europe, pro­mot­ing new bio­di­ver­si­ty and regen­er­at­ing an over-farmed landscape.

Jon Hop­kins already had a nascent inter­est in this type of project. He explains: “Many years ago, my broth­er Sam told me about the con­cept of rewil­d­ing – some­thing he’d read a lot about. He took me to Knepp Estate in Sus­sex to show me how quick­ly land can regen­er­ate once human hands stop interfering.” 

Hop­kins, who has released sev­en stu­dio albums and has pro­duc­er, remix­er, col­lab­o­ra­tor and film cred­its to his name, joined with Big­gi Hilmars on the project – unsur­pris­ing­ly the col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Ice­landic artist whose work spans film, tele­vi­sion and immer­sive the­atre – proved to be a reward­ing one. Adds Hilmars: “I was imme­di­ate­ly drawn to Wild­ing. Its mes­sage of renew­al spoke to me as an envi­ron­men­tal­ist. I want­ed the music to feel alive, organ­ic and full of qui­et trans­for­ma­tion. Col­lab­o­rat­ing with Jon Hop­kins was an honour.”

The album opens with the haunt­ing­ly beau­ti­ful title track – a scene-set­ting piece with sounds that feel as if they are ris­ing out of a mist, with drone, drums and vocals. Hop­kins explains: “The lead sound in Wild­ing theme is my own voice, processed until it sound­ed more like a strange kind of ancient wood­wind instru­ment. I want­ed my con­tri­bu­tions to the film to feel like some­thing old and con­stant – a kind of mem­o­ry, some­thing long held in the land that is final­ly com­ing back to life.”

The sound­track fea­tures vocals, strings and piano and is atmos­pher­ic and tex­tur­al, strong­ly con­nect­ing with the earth, reach­ing down into its core. There is an over­whelm­ing sense of the nat­ur­al world, teem­ing with life in the earth and sky; bird, insect and weath­er sounds are pep­pered amongst the tracks. The score may be telling a sto­ry of the earth but there’s a sense of the spir­i­tu­al too. Hop­kins and Hilmars con­vey the over­rid­ing sense of opti­mism that the project inspired, a reawak­en­ing and a sense of bal­ance restored. 

Wild­ing track­list­ing:
1.     Jon Hop­kins – Wild­ing Theme
2.     Big­gi Hilmars / Jon Hop­kins – Worms
3.     Big­gi Hilmars – But­ter­flies
4.     Jon Hop­kins / King Cre­osote – New Land (Immu­ni­ty)
5.     Big­gi Hilmars – Back To Farm
6.     Big­gi Hilmars – The Sale
7.     Jon Hop­kins – Ground Trans­for­ma­tion
8.     Big­gi Hilmars – Mouse
9.     Big­gi Hilmars – Echoes of the Wild
10.  Big­gi Hilmars / Jon Hop­kins – Net­works
11.  Big­gi Hilmars / Jon Hop­kins – Mag­ic
12.  Jon Hop­kins – The Dove
13.  Big­gi Hilmars – The Slow Awakening

There’s also a pre­view of Wilding:

 

Wild­ing (Orig­i­nal Sound­track) is avail­able to pre-order on vinyl and CD here. It is avail­able to buy dig­i­tal­ly here.

Pho­tos: Jon Hop­kins by Steve Gul­lick. Big­gi Hilmars by Maria Kjartans