[Music] welcome to this special edition of the awake Origins experience I’m Joel Anor and I’m thrilled to introduce one of the most remarkable musicians of our time the one and only John Hopkins John is a true Pioneer in electronic music able to create deeply emotional panop pieces like this one which resonates with profound Beauty but John’s talent doesn’t stop there his powerful techno tracks like this one Captivate massive crowds around the world showcasing his dynamic range and ability to connect on the different

[Music] level John’s musical Journey has also leted him to explore deeper spiritual themes this is beautifully captured in his work on sit around the fire which reflects the profound influence of his spiritual path on his music if you’re quiet when you meditate if you truly open your heart now this new album ritual continues this journey blending introspection with expensive soundscapes listen as Val’s mesmerizing vocals on Palace Elevate this track offering a glimpse into the powerful New Direction of John’s

music John and I spend an afternoon together in London where he explored his spiritual path his purpose his lifestyle and of course his powerful new album before our interview John and I went on a quest to find a cup of coffee while we were already wired up our cameraman assab decided to film or walk what started as a simple coffee run turned into a spontaneous and insightful part of the episode offering a unique glimpse into John’s personality so without further Ado I’m excited to share our conversation with you London is looking

L today I was wondering how it is because you live here you’re here most of that I live very near here I live 15 minutes away I have in the studio home as well so and so how do you years ago I moved I lived in biger places but I felt the need to be in nature more yeah how do you survive in L it’s a good question well you haven’t seen my exact area but I live next to a very big Park yeah and um I live in a little kind of looks like a little village but even though it’s a and um in my house I have my studio which is

beautifully soundproof uh and then I have a sa and an ice bath as well in the gym so I have these kind of over the last 17 years of living there I’ve had this um far was like manifested a way of surviving there quite happily and my commun the thing is I would live in nature if I had the community around me but everyone I love lives here or near here so this is your community so yeah that’s it and my girlfriend lives around the corner it’s all just very it’s kind of I get it man and ice like this um well I do you know I was born in

l i it don’t feel like it’s hard to survive if you um live in a nice part of of a ni achieving I think also the other key and I found this when living in Los Angeles the key is you know you you make sure you leave once in a while reasonably frequently even spend three or four months a year in different places with more uh Wilderness for sure this very different probably every year but how often are you touring and really going from home for longer periods of time well I’ve actually I’m actually winding that down I don’t

really touring is not really for me um so you’re not really doing the touring anymore yeah so with the two big albums I had um played 100 plus shows per may even more for immunity I don’t know cuz you know when you’re really trying to build you kind of have no choice but to take what you get and so we built up from playing to 600 people to playing to like 10,000 people and and the course of that first album uh immunity and then went even more crazy with Singularity and life became very um it kind of consumed your whole life

really if you play shows all the time you can’t there isn’t really room for relationships there isn’t room for health there is the routine it’s just these constant mixure of peak experiences and recovery and bad the bad habit forming stuff was just really hard to avoid um so and then ultimately you’re giving all your energy to performing something you’ve already written so there’s nothing left to write anything new I’m more of a some people I know musicians I know are um they live for the stage they love to

perform I’m the other way around I I like to create EXA I know I performed because it’s in the past it was my main I because it was my job is my income um do you still enjoy performing in any way well I quite like the actual hour and a half period of time there’s nothing really I might I don’t seek it out but it’s totally fine what I don’t everything the consequences it’s the consequences that are too great and ultimately not worth it in um the longer terms could this pizza place open and have cofin I are you open to best pleas

it’s complex because you can have a a very intensely positive experience stage and you can feel like this the collective power of people listening to music together that’s that’s important but then I started to feel like well that’s not my job anymore yeah was other lots of people doing that what is it that I can do that lots of people aren doing it it’s like write the exact music that i’ write that’s it seems more more of a useful thing maybe to d i get it and a way of spending my energy exactly the the energy points you have

in your life are not are not infinite and um to honest I’m still recovering from the experience of Performing so many shows uh so many years I mean um and all the because you know you come off stage and then it’s almost impossible not to stay up for a few hours more and partying and drinking all the things that you do um just to sort of calm Cal down exactly un likee that St that’s not how I want to live right Al it’s a younger man’s or person’s game I’m my mid 40s now so time for a inject change

it I was last year in DEH where he did his show oh yeah very intimate to Eric R this was the tour that I enjoyed the most ever the polarity tour was that last year or the year before I think year before oh yeah yeah the year of September 22 yeah it was um that is I think as far as I I can’t imagine doing a better tour than that yeah it’s like so for self-expression that was it really I don’t um and it’s so hard to do that it’s a really expensive tour to run and you have to sell everything out and we did but for

the amount of work um again it’s just taking away from probably a whole album of new music that could have been made I don’t regret it because that wasn’t amazing I’m glad you saw that particular show because there was a an improvisation in that well there was always an improvisation at the start of every show but the one in the ha was particularly I was in a flow at that point after two weeks on the road and I just remember that one being quite um a feeling very connected with the audience they were always amazing get out on that

tour and then feeling it like knowing that I didn’t know what the first load was going to be and just feeling that crowd there and it just that and how fun it is just to press the first cord and then respond to it with the second cord and then gradually like a tree it kind of grows into something and of course then all we needed to know was it has to end in this key so that the other musicians can come and join in and you know but everything else was like preall oh really yeah a very improvised show

and obviously the electronic bits had Ableton sessions and clips from the albums that I could but which were also free form so I could continue a section but as long as I won before moving on to the next one um and there were some sections which were just the four of us um fully improvising and um you know it was mad it was really that was great so there’s a form creation within it even if you’re yeah yeah I also love the disruptive part of it so you started out very intimate with the piano anded then at the C point of

time you start putting in the volume people like okay are we supposed to dance now can we stand up like this is hesitation yeah yeah yeah exactly and Highway around evening everyone that’s thing what was interesting in different countries is looking at um exactly how long it would take people to to get up ducks and in uh in Spain in Barcelona it was as soon as the first kick on everyone was up in Helsinki it was the longest it was like to two or three but even then everyone was dancing at the end but I feel like

the people were enjoying it they just there’s a the conditioning of the of the country is evident you can see yeah when you play but um it was really a great that tool was was a great it’s a great memory but you’re even not thinking about doing something like that again like it’s too much of I would say that it’s impossible to rule anything out cuz you don’t know like if I become some sort of Next Level yoga practitioner where I can control the energy that you know because to perform like that this energy

has to come through that’s like really intense and if I can find a way of controlling that so I can protect my core from it and close it down gently after the show without turning to partying drinking whatever then maybe there’s a way of doing it as long as I can do that and protect my ears then maybe there’s a way of doing it but it’s even the memory of it now as I talk to you is attached to too many years of trauma is a way too strong a word it’s not trauma it’s a privilege but let’s just say uncomfortable or

unhealthy like there a great many years of negative experiences as well as positive attached to you know like if you play if you play in Madrid sometimes you finish your set at 5: in the morning and then your slight is at 11: so you you don’t really sleep at all it’s just the way you feel offu you’re you’re that’s you’re weak really ruined and it’s not ruined you you know you’ve done your job you’ve made your money you’ve had fun but nothing’s going to happen until the next weekend and then you do it all again and all that

stuff just gets harder as you get older lot easier so um but anyway to answer your question I think the idea of doing a polarity tour again it would be lovely to think that it’s possible because it was special Royal Albert Hall you know here which was is my favorite music in the world maybe I’ve done it twice now and I I would love to think yeah I could do that again one day but I just it’s it’s going to be a few years yeah I think [Music] yeah so what is your daily practice you mentioned TM and T tm’s been there for

some years now um like 2015 I learned so you did two times 20 minutes a day yeah I mean I don’t yeah everyone this is the session now and then but I’m I’m very solid with it as a rule so I wake up well the first thing I do is go outside get the daylight this is Well written about saying you need to get the sunlight in the morning um so walk around and check the garden check everything’s and nothing needs water so I like to don’t turn my phone on yet this is all pre phone and then yeah go and meditate um and then journ a

little bit have tea turn the phone on do anything urgent with a phone if I have to and then I go into studio and I’ll do like maybe 4 hours creative work and then have lunch and then I will often not do any more in the studio Mac you can do it all in that if there’s something Ur of course you have to carry on later and then in the afternoon I will do like exercising you know with gy stuff and um quite important to get like for me to get an hour of gentle cardio in most days um I think my body type needs that

so be calm for the evening and then the evening can be and I like going out as well so we’ll go out in the evening sometimes or or um and then then TM as well before usually before dinner um breath work I I don’t have a rigid thing I just do it when I feel I need it and then um yeah then I have like the ice bath is an important thing to me m really keep that very cold to 2 or 3° right they do 3 minutes of that um most days and then the sauna as well yeah like SAA maybe three times a week in the

winter nearly every day you know great [Music] so we have created this awake orig this movement yes just for contous creators and entrepreneurs leaders yeah to really well put Spotlight on people who from a higher level of awareness let it come through them I think is very inspiring not only for me but for many more people on how to do that yeah so there’s there’s where I feel the intrinsic drive and of course really cool and it’s interesting I feel maybe this is connected to a broader thing that a lot

of us are experiencing that the more wherever I go now I feel like I’ve encountering more more more Consciousness I’m very aware that I live within a privileged bubble but the conversations that are happening on a bigger scale than ever before is a cause for optimism and it’s not well no a lot of people guided into those areas of thought through through different go experiences or through mental health problems that that they don’t understand and they’re looking for ways of understanding and through that can come

quite beautiful things way yeah you Fe need a bit of Crisis yeah exactly yeah going back to a conversation about the stage and performance that all felt like an accident I did not begin this job so that I could be looked at and seen but I did it because I need to make the music and I need the music to be heard that second bit is important cuz it’s not not enough to just make it you it needs to be heard that’s how I feel where you feel obliged to get out there had to do what the St my managers put it

brilliantly I’ve been with the same managers for 25 years now and they said you have two jobs one is to create the music and the second is to make sure people hear it so you have to take that second bit seriously maybe that’s another reason why intuitively I say yes to these longer conversations which you’re a little deeper because I’m writing music for the very movement you’re talking about I’m trying to M that’s my job is so [Music] beautiful what is music to You music has been like my earliest memory and the

absolute core of my being like the core of my soul every cell of my body is has always resonated with music um I think when I was my mom tells me when I was about one year old she would if I was crying she would put on something that’s but used to put Boven on and it would apparently I would just immediately be transfixed and very I have very early memories of of that particular different beten Symphonies that she would put on and I could see them not like synesthesia exactly but I could sense music as as dimensional

space with my eyes closed even then I remember the the French horns had a certain round um shape to them in my Consciousness and strings were like you know fluid and so it it goes right back to the beginning of my awareness of being alive and um and then the progression into actually being able to create it and then finally to being able to create it to the level I dreamt of as being the 44 year Journey which which kind of where we now when did you started creating well I mean in terms of piano

improvisation and self teing I was like three or four and then because the technology I mean I think if the technology had existed I would have got into the electronic composition earlier but the computers that were available in 1992 that you could a normal family could afford weren available um could only really make four sounds at once um so when I was 12 we had this computer that would allow you to sequence sounds and um and then I figured out that you could connect a midi uh interface to that so

around 134 when I got my first synth I was able to start sequencing a little bit um but it was so limited what you could do and I feel like that and this is a probably a quite a a cliche remark but the limitations obviously can be helpful and I do Wonder what it’s like to grow up now when you can like a a kid could just get a laptop with ablon on it and all the instruments you could ever need and all the pany all the multi-channel effects everything is just right there so how you know I just I think it’s quite fun to learn one tiny

thing at a time I remember the day I discovered what panning was you know which speaker the sound is and that was just like whoa mono is no longer what I’ve got you know those experiences are important where important to me so when you were 14 15 years old did you already know you wanted to be a musician as a way of life yeah uh and I think maybe a lot of artists will say this but it was never a choice it was always just that was the way it was going to be but I think back then I didn’t know there was

any such thing as I didn’t really understand that you could just be an electronic solo musician and release records and perform I so I imagined I would be a film composer and whilst I have done that it has not ever been Central to my career so um but yeah it was always going to be some actually there was also a moment where I considered being a classical pness CU that around that era I was quite um deeply involved in that and practicing hard every day but but in the end that was not creation that was reproduction

of someone else’s creation so it wouldn’t it wasn’t enough really and what do you feel is your to use a word like purpose what is your purpose as a musician why are you walking the planet it was interesting so I wouldn’t have known what the answer to that was um until maybe the last decade or so so previously I would have just said I don’t know but it’s become clear that I feel like um the power of music and sound and vibration is starting to resurface perhaps humans are starting to to readdress something that we’ve known

all along but I’ve forgotten that there’s true transformation possible through sound so that’s why my music took such a radical change of Direction after going down quite a specific route commercially with Singularity my biggest album and then suddenly going way over here and doing what you can really more describe as uh music for transformational purposes or I don’t like I don’t use R healing particularly I don’t feel like it’s for me to say that but music that’s almost functional or is a tool for unlocking things within

you or Awakening something in you maybe so that is now my purpose and what was for you the Tipping Point and understanding that this is your purpose I think um there a number of things together I mean it’s never one thing but you know this my spiritual journey began when I was 21 and I I as with I think we were just discussing with with most people Spiritual Awakening happens or begins to happen happen through something going wrong or wrong in your life and um I was I’d hit a bit of a dead end with my the very early stage of

my career and I got I got quite ill and um I found a book about cini meditation and I started learning some quite powerful breath work techniques at 21 at 21 um this actually was 22 when I got deeply into that book 22 is a potent number as well for me um so that was the beginning of this journey but then Korea very much started to take over and then I would say I went quite astray over those years it’s like quite dazzled by the well my ego was quite into it you know getting all the recognition that I

always felt would you know the ego always steals it deserves um and then so I I suppose over the years at building this career um particularly through the live element and the endless amount of shows I did um there’s a there’s a layer of physical consequence that comes with that and rather than stop doing it I I would learn these techniques to try and mitigate so I learned Transcendental Meditation because I couldn’t sleep but of course it it changes everything else about your life in fact I still don’t

sleep particularly well but I don’t I think I’m getting the rest I need now but you know often the spiritual things will sneak into your life under the guise of something else yeah and then you’ll be like oh okay that was that was what was going on so what it did change for you to trans the meditation was that what did it change for you to trans it changed I mean it changed changed me in so many ways it it and it’s so gradual because it’s daily practice you know it’s not something you do for two weeks

and get in fact you you do it every day twice a day and what it’s changed is um my ease at being alive be the best way I could describe it my happiness potential my ability to be mindful and present my my compassion levels um because I like many musicians at heart or certainly was born a pretty selfish and self-absorbed person and could be guess with the emotions of others and I feel like it’s helped me see that and develop past that um but also it’s a blissful experience and you know you can what I suppose in in periods where

TM is really noticeable because it comes and goes in waves how you how you experience it you’ll suddenly see a tree as if you’ve never seen a tree before it’s psychedelic in a way you know we’ve all had that experience in COC cybin where you’re just like yeah but have you really looked at that leaf you know we get so used to looking at a leaf and then we really look at a leaf for the first time again TM brings about that kind of experience for me quite often yeah so how did it proceed from there so

you started doing the TM yeah and then I was still very much in the thick of it with touring and then um I say 2019 uh just a few months before covid started um I reached a kind of lowest point where um I was just performing so much and it was always the same show and the shows were bigger than ever you know there was maybe nine of us touring around and and there was fun elements but it was really just like too much partying and um feeling like a lost to Sea really and not knowing how to get out of it and because it becomes like an

addiction you know and on the surface I thought I was still on the right path because the because I loved the music and I was proud of the album I was promoting but that felt to me like the end of an era of of music as entertainment only um and so I just became so physically unhealthy I suppose and or mentally unhealthy more in that era um that it forced me really to to step back and you know I was hurting others in in behav my behavior you’re just unconsciously really um being selfish so it it really felt like the

end of that that road so that’s that’s why thing has changed so [Music] much and was it the ignition of the next level in your spiritual journey as well for Singularity there was a it’s already very spiritual album I believe yes it is but I would say it contain and I’m not going to like I don’t don’t want to say negative things about the album because it’s it that can be well because I am proud of it and and also that can be not enjoyable for people who love it um to hear that I don’t love it because I do

but in a way I feel like it’s a bit of my version of spiritual bath think I have like a it’s it’s quite a sparkly um you know I I was doing I had done some cocy and I was just kind of like very aware of the greater wider scheme of things but perhaps not dealing with the that I had to deal with you know we all know we all know right we’ve all we’ve all been through these phases and it’s it’s a very important phase to go through and it also is quite dangerous and cuz you think you know everything and actually you’re the same

that you were you’ve just got a glimpse that there is something else and it’s it it’s more about really looking at um really looking at that deeper stuff that harder stuff that I wasn’t doing at that time how did you do that how did you start looking at that stuff well it was a lot I mean through many things um in Co in the covid period which is an extraordinary part of all of our Lives um I was in a relationship um with an amazing woman who I feel taught taught me a lot she’s actually in the world of psychotherapy

and Psychiatry and um and when we broke up actually the breakup itself was was very very traumatic and I never not through the fault of either of us we just were not looking for the same thing but it all happened at the same time as um Co being at its worst than everyone being in lockdown in the middle of winter and I was writing with psychic therapy album and it was coming through in this crazy way and I was just I had such a simple life of going between my studio and the and the house and not really seeing

anyone and being heartbroken and making that album and that album was you know the the albums I make have have always been like marker points in my life and that they’re also functional for me like that was a way of processing grief and learning to understand those ways in which I’m not I’m not stepping up you know I’m not showing up for Life properly you see what I mean yeah so when it was finished this the thing is like these Transformations don’t happen in a week you know these things happen over many

years for many reasons and whil there’re always you you can pinpoint certain important um events it’s a collection of things always so to after the singularity album take a different turn and knowing that you’re going to be maybe more nich than you were because you’re not going for the big SS anymore how how did that feel for you it’s quite funny from a commercial point of view to like it’s because after Singularity you could just go right I’m going to just aim for the top of the charts and cuz you know

Singularity was a top 10 album which is mad really given this doesn’t have any songs on it and everybody tracks quite long but it did well and um yeah I I yeah the people that were contacting me to work on stuff it was a lot um but I was just so yeah I was not in a good place and I was not happy and I I’ve only ever written what I wanted what I felt was the right thing to write and um I feel like the soon as you start composing um with a view to how it might be received then you fox really you have to so

you’ve never done that through your whole career no that’s not true there’s an element of it in immunity but I’m it it was aligned with what I wanted to make like I knew I had to make a successful album at that point because or at least I had to do my best to do that because the solo career wasn’t really moving and the behind the scenes career was moving well with production and stuff but I felt like I had more to say than that so I did bring in the sort of I felt like the the embracing of the dance music world brought an

accessibility to the music that I was making that time but I wouldn’t say that um that was not aligned as well because I was loving that and I would that that was my time of clubbing in my life my time it was like my Rave raving kind of peak and I was interested in the the flip side of Raving like The Melancholy um when the party ends and the the deeper emotional states that you can experience that are not so often discussed within ra culture so um but back to psychedelic therapy I mean it was never a that album was just was such

a it was like a religious experience to make it and you just the thought of how well it’s going to do or not do was nowhere near my mind at any point and actually given that it has no melodies or transients or beats or structure particularly well no it has a very strong structure but it doesn’t have rhythmic structure of any kind it did reach a lot of people and I’m so I’m and it still continues to go out there and do its thing but it’s its own force and once you finish something you have to let it go anyway and you know you I

think it’s important not to let um the expectations of others or commercial concerns enter the studio really if you can possibly help it so with the ritual album how would you describe what wanted to come through you here well it’s a difficult one with words but um it definitely feels like a obviously a ritual the name is quite neutral so that people can use it for whatever they need it for like the idea is it will assign itself to some use for each listener um and it’s a framework it’s a structure

for something to take place some form of transformation um and it’s less specific than the previous album which obviously has sense a prescription in the title um this is not that I think it works really well with breath work it works with Tantra it works with certain medicines but it’s really like Choose Your Own Adventure type stuff um and then it follows the it follows the classic kind of Arc that I’ve Tred I suppose repeatedly and many many films like the the classic heroes Journey story is is very much told in

this album as well the the feeling like you’re not going to make it and then you do type thing and the the Journey of forgetting and remembering who you really are all that kind of stuff it’s sort of embedded in there what I love about is that the title tracks guide The Listener a bit in this journey yeah give a bit of reference yeah and it’s good that because actually I mean I wanted it to be um obviously to be heard as one piece because it is one piece and when you listen on whatever manner you’re

listening it will play without but because for legal reasons I had to make it eight tracks for contractual reasons and actually I I think it like you say it allowed me to give a little road map to what’s going on there just with a couple of words here and there um so yeah yeah I think it worked out as it was supposed to [Music] why is music able to do what it does in a transformative sense oh that I do not know I mean I’m not sure how how anyone could know that you know music is there for where language stops

like the language gets to this point and then art visual art and audible art takes over so the answer to that is probably somewhere past words for me anyway um I could theorize that that everything is energy everything is frequency and therefore conscious use of energy and frequency um conscious use of vibration therefore should affect us but I wouldn’t know how that’s happening when I’m writing music I’m not thinking about that or thinking about anything I’m just um following a thread following an intuitive

thread now where that comes from is is it interesting it’s like what eot tole calls the Deep eye I think it’s like the the the yeah so the part of of self that music comes from I think is um is the kind of unbounded sell the bit that that we all share and possibly is the core of everyone um whether we know it or not I like to think about it that way um and as I’ve got older as I’ve particularly as as TM practice has deepened over the years um I feel like I have more access to that and that that

becomes clearer in the music and that’s vertical connection itself yeah exactly Yeah well yeah that the the vertical Dimension almost the the moment and the presence that you can that you can touch on in those States is coming through in the music more I believe the way you’re creating an whole album takes quite some time it’s very meticulous process how do you make sure that you that it keeps coming through you it’s not it’s not a one second flow moment it’s a very long period of time well this one was yeah

five or six months I mean other ones have been two years you know and there this was a short one so this was the shortest one um but there’s a number of reasons for that it’s not because less work was done it’s because less there was less pain in doing it and like I use pain this everything is relative like the pain someone like like me experiences in writing music is not real visceral pain but there’s there’s it’s very it can be very very difficult sitting there on your own like with a terrible posture staring at a screen

trying to trying to create something um even though you’re lucky to be doing it so um there’s kind of a well there’s a very central reason why ritual was different in its creation and that’s because they were collaborators there were lots of collaborators is like seven people I worked with so whereas on Singularity for example there’s a track called neon pattern drum which is like the third track and I was stuck on it for so long and I would have to just not listen to it for two weeks and try and

let it get it out of my system then redress it one day and then there would be a brain wave and it would work for a bit and then it would fade again and then finally it after a year of this track hanging around I finally figured out how to make it work like that sort of thing didn’t happen with ritual firstly because I do feel like I’m more in tune now with the music that wants to come through me but secondly because I had these collaborators main one is my oldest friend Dan who is the artist name

is seven race you’ll see he was all over the previous album as well just means that when you hit that kind of brick wall with a moment in the record like you say it’s a 41 minute piece with no gaps so it it obviously didn’t come out and it was not a live take before minutes it’s like meticulously crafted when I would hit a brick wall I could just send it over to Dan and um he would say he would usually know exactly what’s wrong so that speeds up the process so much and then also he would then come to London from Devon and

so would Matt hilia who is the other collaborator Who records under the name ish i is HQ um he would come to London as well then Sharif hasu who’s my long-term mixing and Engineering partner and Co production sometimes um he was there as well so there were people coming in and um even just having someone in the room when you listen back to yourself can change your experience of listening to music sometimes you can understand oh this section is really boring and like you thought it was great and you

realized through their Consciousness is being in the room with you without anyone saying anything and that’s really B so I would listen with people and just take notes that I wouldn’t have been able to take had they not been in the room before any conversation but often we would be like we can sit there and figure out you know over the 41 minutes what is the sort of basic road map here what was important was that each SEC there wasn’t a Wasted Minute that was a very important thing and then each section focused on a certain

thing so it wasn’t just everything all the time there was a lot of muting going on particularly towards the end so there’s a section that’s all about the shepherd tones there’s a section it’s all about this one kind of portal like sound that opens and there obviously the lead vocal that Viana Marcus comes in with at the end um there’s very you know they are kind of marked by the track names but um it was very important that that every every second of the album earned its right to be there really and it’s truly beautiful like you

said it’s last night I was listening to it and then at the soon point in time for meditation I start doing in need breath work I start doing some movements like it really takes its own life this is what I love to hear because obviously it hasn’t come out yet as we have this conversation and so I don’t know what it’s going to do for people but I I think that’s it like I’ve had some deep before it was finished I was checking it and I had some casine experiences checking it and some some meditation

experiences checking and and I would find that it does want you to move sometimes wants you to move quite a lot there’s definitely a breath work technique that goes with it that I that I sort of feel like I received as a download talking about collaborations so of course in the past you’ve been co-producing the F the VA album from cplay and then it seems like you had a period with less collaborating doing your own thing and now it’s there’s more collaborations happening is your is your is your perspective on collaborating

changed no I mean it’s um in the same way as creating music as intuitive I would say the projects I choose to get involved in is those choices are also intuitive so um I know that I’m happier when I’m working with people and I know that I work faster and I make better music so um and I’ve met more people in the last few years like I feel there’s been a great coming together of musicians and The Internet’s been been great for this obviously um for all it does wrong there’s there’s positives as well um so if something feels exciting

to do I just tend to know that it’s the right thing and and um what I really like doing is creating things out of nothing and then sending them off to someone else and letting them do something you know that’s I have a few of those going on now and it’s amazing because they do things that you never would do and that’s a very obvious statement but music exists that you know there’s this Rick ribbon quote that I always think of um something like um when to seemingly random things come together and

something wants to exist I think that’s roughly what it was and I feel like that principal exists within the Catan music all the time and all the best stuff I’ve made has been when I’ve stopped trying to control it and let these kinds of seemingly random things get involved you know whether is as simple as there’ll be a two note drone playing a studio that I’m playing around with and then a sound will come from outside somewhere that happens to fill a note in that cord that I wouldn’t have chosen and then you go

oh right then you feel like you’re do I keep using this term these days but it feels like a du it with the universe you’re you’re being fully open to everything coming in and um then you get I think that’s when you get the more unusual and more profound feelings in the creation [Music] have you had profound experiences or transformative experiences yourself when listening to music yeah I mean that’s where it yeah for sure I mean they started when I was or rather I mean they’ve always been there but they very much leveled up in

my teenage years when I first heard and discovered ambient and electronic music properly and um and also discovering cannabis and how cannabis could kind of open up these extraordinary worlds of experience and physical Bliss as well as um visual I didn’t really what was going on in those experiences they were quite potent and I had I went quite far down that route um you know I was too young really and I didn’t have any guidance but that’s just that’s what teenagers do but it was a very solitary thing it was

just me listening to music night after night whilst um I’m the INF of cannabis and that was like um looking back on that I think that was the way that the Blissful states are experienced with things I have were so important and I’ve spent my whole life learning how to try and translate that into things that can be experienced without anyone taking anything ideally exactly yeah oh this what what I love about your music you don’t need anything with it and you’re being guided great that’s ni and then if you do

choose to augment your reality then you’ll there’ll be another layer there but I feel like it’s important to for this time when people are experimenting with these things a bit more to to have some safe and I don’t know some sort of musical guidance really through the Inner Space because it could be pretty chaotic with the wrong choices let’s say in decades from now you will be looking back at your career what what has your music done for the planet for Humanity well I don’t know that’s a difficult one to answer um I could

answer it by saying like some of the messages I have received from people who have had experiences on the deeper side with the last album like I received some messages from some uh veterans with severe PTSD who were given casm in treatment and went through that album so times who have written and and said that it it actually saved their life and if you can even if that’s true and that can even happen for two one or two people that’s already enough Legacy but you know for all those stories that the

people that do get in touch there must be others where they on so it’s that’s when it’s just an honor to be doing it really um and it’s important to stress that I don’t feel like this stuff is coming from me it’s coming through you a vehicle yeah exactly yeah and then you need to get yourself out of the way for that to be true but um yeah how do you envision this is a big question how do you envision the future of humanity where can we go to and um what is needed to cut there that is a big question

um what I what I see happening at the moment is lot fragmentation a lot of groups separate off and saying we are different from these groups and more and more polarization but at the same time I see more common threads appearing and um but it I suppose in in some parts of the world it feels like um entirely different I mean humans having such entirely different experiences they could always be like different species and that’s really scary you know if you have all the privilege versus if you have nothing the experience that you’re

having it’s then this seems to be going more and more extreme in those directions you know like a spiritual poverty and a poverty in what is eaten um and the quality of water and air in certain parts of the world it’s just so you know so it’s creating a seems to be creating a kind of such an extraordinary division um what’s needed to bring people together is uh I mean ideally a collective Awakening of some kind but how that actually happens I think a lot of people are trying to figure that out it it will

come from many sources if it happens and maybe I mean I feel like it I’ve had visions that it will happen but I don’t think it’s likely to be in our lifetimes I think could take a little longer but it through Collective Awakening yeah for yeah I mean this is all highly theoretical but um I think that uh you know a lot of things need to be dismantled or will will dismantle themselves before there’s room for a new thing or maybe they’ll happen simultaneously but maybe the Awakening is already happening but it’s kind of

um it’s less public it’s not written about right it’s not in the media that that how would you even put language to that on a on a in a way that would interest everyone and could you create a soundtrack to it to the to the process of the collective Awakening what would it sound like well that’s what I’m that’s what I’m trying to do already I would say ritual is that on the individual level but it could be for a collective and say that’s an attempt and whether I meant that at the time I don’t know but that is that is probably my job

is to keep telling that story um it’s because it seems to be the story I keep telling with different albums in different ways um I’ll probably keep just telling that story that Arc of you know but with ritual is very apparent as you get to the you know the most challenging section somewhere in the middle like that’s where we are as a species right now yeah yeah we’re like right in the middle of that Machinery somewhere um there’s a lot of destru ction but within that is you know there’s the cracks and then

eventually the light comes in to to quote then a cone badly so you’ve mentioned several times that you’re using your intuition to make decisions how do you do that how do you listen to your intuition how do you know what is your intuition and what is not H well I think even the part of you which is asking yourself that question is not your intuition that’s the mind and as soon as you’re asking yourself that then it’s not your intuition anymore so it’s just a knowing it’s a deepest knowing and um if there’s any questioning around it

again it’s not your intuition um and it’s true there is this question like what is if you’re in an anxious state is why it’s so important to do whatever work you have to not to be in an anxious State how do you know what’s anxiety and what’s intuition there is something you could be have a very strong negative or fearful reaction to something that you think is going to happen that could be intuition but it could be anxiety so that’s why I put a lot of really a lot of effort and time every day into making

sure the anxiety is not a dominant Force for me through your practices through yeah I mean I mean straightforward cardio is one of the best things for that but so is meditation so is tantric practice there’s a lot of things there’s so many things you can do now all the techniques you know one of the good things about this age is the information is everywhere there’s so many things you can do simple full box breathing or you know eating the right food um just treating yourself well you can change

your reactions to things quite easily I think but that information is all out there now what I believe for most people is the difficult thing is to have the discipline to keep taking care of themselves in all these different ways yeah does it come natural to you that discipline or do well I’m a very extreme person in the I I I’m very very disciplined with all the the right practices but I also love decadence and eating and drinking what I want as well so honored en lives I love I love amazing wine I love amazing beer I love

eating kind of whatever I like um so Mo a lot of days I’ll have Ian I need to do the practices because well even just for the simple reason that I don’t sleep particularly well so if I don’t do my TM then I won’t be able to work probably that well if I don’t do the cardio I might suffer from anxiety so the consequences of not doing them are too disruptive too negative to mean that I would I would just never it would never even occur to me not to do those things but then at the same time in the evening I really like sitting on

my roof with a bear and just like snacking on things I shouldn’t really eat and like not giving myself a hard time about it because that’s also fine you know as long as the bulk of your day is sort of conducted with some degree of mindfulness and health that I think it’s okay to have your trees as well but I do not leave I do not lead a monastic Life by any sense yeah no but I think um if I were to stop all the healthy practices and the spiritual techniques I would very quickly cease functioning

that’s so like it’s not a choice for me yeah and I actually think that’s a really priv uh a very lucky state to be because I’ve met people in my life who you know many musicians in fact particularly Engineers um people who work at computers all the time and just get very engrossed in a creative project and they don’t move during during the day and but they’re not feeling any pain because of it but one day in their 50s or 60s suddenly the hair will go something like that whereas my body’s very loud in the way it communicates so

when I was 27 after already having done 10 years of sitting like that with the mouth suddenly my back went into spasm and I that’s forced me to grow muscle and you know like train work out and have treatments and start to learn about how the how actually we’re not just you the body is not just a thing that carries around the head it’s this is one thing so you have to and then of course that starts changing that starts changing everything for you once you can begin that process of embodiment so to to stay away from pain or anxiety

you have certain Behavior do you also have certain values that pull you towards certain Behavior or way of living so what what is truly important to you in life yeah the values I think like what’s really important is like if you if you have a degree of mindfulness and you can see the ways in which you haven’t shown up or behaved as well as you could or being as supportive as you could to others and um my my goal is to to spot that and and improve that you know make that situation I think you can really spread

out um all your internal learning by your behavior just smiling at people looking at people in the eye like not being so stuck in your own world and your own concerns um it takes years if you’re inherently a bit selfish like me it just know my instinct my instinctive first thought will often be to my own preservation so I had to spot that and do the work to evolve beyond that and you can you can cultivate that I remember this ramas quote um every quote I get on that I’m saying to you I will be getting slightly wrong but the gist

of it was that um he said um when asked how he had changed through his spiritual journey he said I’m so exactly the same person I’m still the same neurotic person I always was but I know it now he knows exactly in which way that’s true and therefore once you know you get this like opportunity I think to it’s almost like a few seconds are inserted for you in which you can choose your reaction so I might have a selfish impulse but I’ll spot it and then I’ll go actually I’m not going to do that yeah whereas before

you act unconsciously you do that you know and that’s what all these practices together um in an Ideal World will build up to that that capability you mentioned R dson of course you’ve been making a track with his voice to it do do you have certain books or maybe spirit Spirit teachers that have been important to you on your journey well the thing it was interesting with the ram D because I wasn’t that familiar with him and then um I read I think actually no one of my best friends um gave me the be here now

yeah and I I loved it I didn’t know much about him and then I was reading um how to change your mind the Michael pollen book and then it you know it could kind of give like the origin story to he R asses know that was um but I haven’t read his other things but I was so blown away by that particular talk that um East Forest asked me to collaborate on how we ended up with sit around the fire it was just so so powerful so I wouldn’t say there are particular people more more there were particular moments or

passages that um there was a time in the kind of early years of well I think it was the early years of podcasting where um people like Aubrey Marcus and Joe Rogan would shining a light on some very interesting people and a lot of information was coming out very quickly that I’d never heard before that seemed you know like being introduced to the work of people like those guys but also like Wim Hof um and Dr Ronda Patrick and all these these people that just have become very influential they did feel

like there was a moment there where it was all very wholesome um and helpful thing it’s amazing as we coming more to the surface yeah in the mainstream yeah yeah yeah yeah for sure but I and I don’t listen to so much these days but um I would say the one person and the teachings of one person have been more important than anyone else and that’s their C without question I’ve actually went all the way to Huntington Beach California to Retreat an in-person retreat with him quite recently and um it was just the best

thing ever I it just it was absolutely extraordinary um when he stops talking and he’s just in presence the entire room just elevates you could feel it it’s like oh my God there’s no there’s no voice in my head he’s able to do that or he’s he’s able to empower that or bring that ability out um out from within everyone in that room and listening to his books um I like to listen because I can hear the transmission in his voice uh rather than reading them has also been very crucial absolutely so what has it done

for you um present moment awareness is key to everything I think that we’ve been talking about it’s the call I mean they’re only I’m going to buture all his quotes and won’t even try but there’s only ever going to be this moment yeah I think he says um if you can name one thing ever that didn’t happen in the present moment I mean you can’t it’s impossible nothing ever happens it wasn’t in the present moment it’s the only thing that ever was or ever will be and it changes the way you I would say

it changes the way you think but it’s not about thinking it it’s more that it changes the way you are the way You’ be um and that’s kind of that’s how it’s that’s what it’s done for me or it’s it’s a process though because we we keep lapsing back into to uh the same mind patterns which are which are not just in the head they’re in the body they’re held in the body all over every part of the body holds body keeps a score as they say um so it’s a constant process every day um with every breath almost you you have

to remember and stay present but it it does it get better over the years yeah when you do the work when you do the work it’s been a revelation when I understood that where you say your body keeps the score but the emotions are also part of your organs is a theistic practice so sadness in your lungs and fears in your kidneys I really that specific very specific that’s amazing right the specific practices you can do to release that from your system it’s very powerful I didn’t know that that’s well it’s actually called the

healing sounds so there is for every organ there’s for example the lungs mhm uh you you connect with the G in your lungs you make the movement and at a certain point in time you relase every organ has a different sound okay relates to so yeah very interesting so it’s separate from Chakra stuff or is it roughly correlated it is well in the end there is a connection to it because the for example the second chakra Energy Center is related to the kidneys mhm so they are connected but the practice is

different and yeah one thing I’ve been doing is it’s a sort of Chon practice of shaking just vigorously shaking usually to music it’s quite good the music can kind of energize and help with that yeah but just loosening up I mean it just makes sense you’re just getting everything moving stagnating yeah but is interesting I I read his book I think it was my early 20s and I wasn’t ready for it yet like at the page 50 I had to lay it down yeah but how he’s been able to inspire so many uh people with that Ence

I mean and my mom told me about it and I I didn’t read it for ages I think I I think I finally listened to the audiobook about four years ago so it’s relatively you been already been out for 25 years I think at that point um and then the new Earth as well they’re just um yeah there seems to me this beautiful thing that there’s there are core truths at the center of every both the old religions and then there’s all this nonsense that’s grown around them all which which prevents you from getting to

the actual truth and he’s I think he’s his role seems to be on his purpose on this planet is somehow finding that truth and shedding it of its of all those layers and bringing it back that’s how I felt about it yeah and when you notice common elements between all practices and all you know all myths and all stories and all the things that we’ve inherited like it’s the things that stand in common between everything that clearly have some truth in them yeah [Music] one final question if I frame you as a conscious

Creator who’s playing on the highest level which I think is the case what would you advise others who are on this journey of Consciousness and want to create from the inside out what is crucial in be be able to do it in whatever way as an artist as a Creator as an entrepreneur whatever you’re doing in life um I mean I would say it is having a strong meditation practice I wouldn’t be prescriptive and say which one I know I’ve talked about what works for me but without that I think you’re kind of at

the mercy of of metaphorical waves and Winds of life you’re just blowing around all the time you don’t have a anchor I think you need an anchor of some kind and if it’s that that 20 minute period in the morning is just vital for that because I think then you will perhaps be better equipped to tune into that deeper wisdom that there’s everywhere and out of your own concerns and then of course better Creations will come through you anyway um and then once that starts happening it becomes like a cycle you know because your own

Creations can help wake you up yourself which is theer I’ve been having recently gu it’s fun love it I I know that many many people don’t like to hear your advice just now but I can only agree with it it’s the foundation yeah yeah I mean yeah what but what else could I there’s no solution um that doesn’t require doing something every day I would say there’s no what we love in our era and our culture is to just imagine that there’s this thing you can go and do once once a year or something like magic bully that will take care of of

all your for you but there isn’t yeah there’s a hell of a lot of work you have to do all the time but you can enjoy it as well like it starts to be fun I never thought when I was a kid that I would love exercise and fitness and strength building it’s one of my favorite things to do now you know um it’s just you got at least try these things F you got I suppose also it would always advice people to try different things and see what resonates for you like very specific with physical exercise what things do

you love what things do you not love I tried I tried like boxing and I tried running and I hating them both and I found things that I did love and for me it was like more stray up strength training and and cycling and hanging from hoops and things like that but you just need to happen upon these things yeah you know um and it’s all that all that stuff is out there and available so you just have to start finding out really what works well and the good thing with your music you can use it to have a daily

practice too or to start out with it well that’s great people get that that’s great yeah once in a while well I when I have a hard time to stick with my practice like I feel away in my head uh to put on music that can really guide you like your music and then okay thoughts are gone and it becomes just easier to be here that’s great well then to go back to your question about Legacy earlier would love I would love that if you know that to be it if there were people that can say that about it then that’s that’s amazing

for me thank you for being here today thank you for the music that you’re bringing into the world I will enjoy it more thank appreciate yeah it was a really nice conversation thank thanks for having me thanks for coming over thank you this is Joel founder of awake Origins and before we wrap up I’ve got something important to share I’d like to invite you to join a deeply insightful profound and musical live experience decode yourself right now you can register for free to be part of this gamechanging

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below register now for free and I hope to see you there soon imagine a world where we all remember the mind-blowing truth of who we really are a world world where a global Awakening has rooted Us in the collective Consciousness a world where we go all in on elevating our frequency our organizations and innovating the way we build our society what does it mean to actually feel aligned with who you are to let life be an expression through you we need to know who we are in order to function accordingly

you see a collective arising contributing to a brighter future so much is changing in the world more and more people are waking up truly discovering who they are to know and experience that you’re not the only one out there are you hungry enough to go all in good T real feel it the connection welcome to this awake Origins experience it’s time to come home to a home where conscious entrepreneurs leaders and change makers co-create a brighter future together