Jon Hopkins is a British born, London musician who writes and performs his own music, melody-led electronica. At the age of five he started playing the piano and at twelve years old he was studying piano at London's Royal College of Music...

Jon Hopkins has worked with bands such as; Coldplay, Imogen Heap, King Creosote, Massive Attack, Chris Coco and Brian Eno, amongst many others.

'Light Through The Veins' is Jon Hopkins new single taken from his forthcoming album, Insides. This is a work of classic, hypnotic electronica and being 9 minutes in length it really has to shine!

There are four mixes of this track on the single and all are very different to the next.

Listening to the 'Radio Edit' felt like going on a journey, which is filled with excitement, hope, anxiety and much haste. That is until we reach 6 mins. where the melody fades out and in comes a very sad, emotional, slow ending. This brought me out in Goosebumps, something that doesn’t happen often. Truly magical.

The original version of this single is somewhat of a disappointment. This plays out just like the 'Radio Edit' but then, at 4 mins 20 secs, it ends. I couldn’t help feeling somewhat robbed at not having heard the emotional ending that you receive from the 'Radio Edit'.

Ewan Pearson’s remix keeps this track real; it begins with the bass guitar followed by the drums and of course keeps the original melody throughout. Everything builds up until we reach a massive crescendo, which then settles, and eventually fades out to the delightful plink plonk sound of the melody again.

The David Holmes remix gets of to a great start with a heavy, heady bass beat. This beat moves in to the melody, which eventually fades and leaves us with the beginnings of a dance track. Unfortunately it doesn’t progress how I thought it should and it fades to the end at 14 mins, 20 secs. I felt this track was far too long and could have been so much more if the dance part had progressed into a giant crescendo.

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Helena Rea