#contact note

Some semblance of personality makes Hopkins’ second record a far livelier, if still just as inconsistent, affair than his debut. While Opalescent seemed a bit lost in its pacing and style, Contact Note clearly has its influences. And by “influences” – I mean quite literally just Boards of Canada. The Scottish IDM pioneers should get a professional credit on this record, with much of it drawing from (and coming suspiciously close to) the duo’s work. It’s a thin line between plagiarism, but play ‘Second Sense’ next to Geogaddi’s ‘Alpha and Omega’, and the similarities are plain, obvious and maybe even a bit slanderous. Nevertheless, even a copycat BoC record can be satisfying if pulled off with enough expertise – and Hopkins shows glimmers of that talent throughout Contact Note. The alternative rock grooves of the opener ‘Circle’, for instance, are driving and exhilarating, while ‘Symmetry’ and ‘Nightjar’ similarly hint at a more alert and interesting sound.

While Contact Note is an improvement on Opalescent, it must pointed out that this is, in part, due to the severe weaknesses of that previous record. Contact Note still isn’t of high-quality throughout, notedly drags through its hour run-time, and is in places rather explicitly and repetitively dull; and while it doesn’t reach the depths of tediousness that Opalescent did, it isn’t far away. Airy, hymn-like vocal segments such as those on the titular track come across as slow moments from a soundtrack, only without any visual stimulus to keep the listener interested; while the grooves that may have been impactful in 2005, have dated particularly badly in the thirteen years since. It’s quite disappointing when after a migratory low-intensity phase, Hopkins’ only solution is a dated pick-up beat that could have come from a BoC record released a decade earlier. That’s ultimately Contact Note’s weakness – it isn’t just largely unemphatic, but when it is, it doesn’t feel fresh or unique. It’s a record that offers the subtlest of hints as to the more compelling material on Immunity, but understandably demonstrates why Hopkins himself became disillusioned with making his own music after this release.

100 - Jon Hopkins