Today, Jon Hop­kins shares a brand-new track called For­ev­er Held on Domi­no Records. A full orches­tral piece writ­ten by Hop­kins with string arrange­ments by Óla­fur Arnalds, it’s an emo­tive and deeply peace­ful piece of cin­e­mat­ic music which touch­es on “themes of our Earth and its con­text with­in space”. 

In com­mon with many of Hop­kins’ com­po­si­tions, For­ev­er Held calms the soul and takes you away to lux­u­ri­ate in anoth­er dimen­sion. The piece feels imbued with a sense of opti­mism and hope, a cel­e­bra­tion of the beau­ty of Earth and our deep con­nec­tion with our plan­et and the stars.
 
NASA JPL col­lab­o­rat­ed with Jon Hop­kins to com­pose the song for Space for Earth – NASA’s first immer­sive expe­ri­ence open to the pub­lic, com­mis­sioned by NASA and locat­ed at NASA Head­quar­ters in Wash­ing­ton DC. The song was inspired by let­ters writ­ten by NASA Cre­ative Direc­tor and artist Eri­ca Bern­hard dur­ing the cre­ation of the instal­la­tion. These let­ters, love let­ters from Earth to Space, end­ed in the phrase “For­ev­er enveloped in your grav­i­ty”. These words inspired Jon’s fre­quent col­lab­o­ra­tor, Rick Hol­land, to name the song “For­ev­er Held”.

Talk­ing about the music, Hop­kins says: “I took this oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate a full orches­tral piece. I want­ed to make some­thing time­less that would trans­mit the feel­ing of being ‘held’ by the Earth. I was think­ing about the fragili­ty and pow­er of our plan­et, and of the human race’s role in its own destiny.”

For­ev­er Held will be sent to the moon as part of the Lunar Codex.

Jon Hop­kins recent­ly released his lat­est stu­dio album RITUAL a 41-minute cer­e­mo­ni­al epic built from cav­ernous subs, hyp­not­ic drum­ming and tran­scen­dent melod­ic inter­play. The first large-scale event is at London’s EartH The­atre next month which has already sold out. There will be a live piano per­for­mance and a Q&A with Hop­kins and his col­lab­o­ra­tor 7RAYS.

Jon Hop­kins live
Per­form­ing at London’s South­bank Cen­tre and Manchester’s Avi­va Stu­dios along­side Aaron and Bryce Dess­ner as part of film screen­ings of All of This Unre­al Time star­ring Cil­lian Murphy.

NASA’s Space for Earth instal­la­tion:
The inter­ac­tive phys­i­cal exhib­it is locat­ed at NASA Head­quar­ters in Wash­ing­ton DC, where vis­i­tors are invit­ed to see Earth as NASA astro­nauts see it from space. 
 

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For­ev­er Held, released 30th Novem­ber on Domi­no Records