Immunity is 10 years old today
Immunity is 10 years old today. The album was written between late 2010 and early 2012. I poured everything into it, taking so much care over every element. I had often not felt my track titles in the past fully represented what I was trying to say in the music, so I worked with the poet Rick Holland on the titles for this one. We sat in pubs and talked for hours about what I was trying to convey, then he went away and wrote stream-of-consciousness style poetry and I found the titles hiding in there.
Musically I remember being pretty burnt out by the end of making this record. The main riff on Open Eye Signal was created on the 1979 Korg MS20 that's pictured. This riff alone I must have spent 4 months on. The notes were in place quite early, but the gradual changes to the sound took so long. So much effort into trying to make something sound effortless.
The title track dated back as far as 2005, to when my piano was still at my mum's house. It was recorded on a £25 mic I had since I was a kid. Around this time I met King Creosote, but didn't put his vocals on the song until a few years later when we were making Diamond Mine.
For the artwork for Immunity, I didn't want to just use a graphic that was created digitally. All the project's imagery is made up of photographs of crystals forming under microscopes, taken by biochemist and artist Linden Gledhill. I loved this idea of creating something abstract and organic but within a tiny physical space, and filming that beautifully. It felt like it represented the way I make sounds, which often involves stretching things out, slowing things down, seeing what's hidden inside.
This record changed my life. I went from playing 500 cap venues to 5000 cap in less than a year. The whole thing was a whirlwind, and has since given me the freedom to follow any creative route that comes to me. Making and releasing it was a very special experience.
I have never had anything I’ve made remastered before, but had occasionally wondered if the loud mastering on Immunity is something I would still have done today. When Guy Davie and I returned to the pre-masters, I was suddenly wary of messing with it, creatively changing something that people were familiar with and that had become important to them. So we went back to the original settings, then ran the tracks through Guy's EMI mastering console. The results were captured in 96k digital, then processed subtly by a Weiss expander. I love the added movement and flow that comes from this recovered dynamic range. It just has a little more breathing space, whilst retaining the grit and intensity it always had.
Listen to the remastered Immunity now, and order the vinyl & CD.
![Flume - The Difference (feat. Tori Y Moi) [Jon Hopkins Remix] out now](https://jonhopkins.co.uk/media/_1200x1200_crop_center-center_100_none/257E0E20-3BD7-420B-9681-D4B722668B4C.jpeg)
