The Artist: King Creosote & Jon Hopkins
King Creosote (aka Kenny Anderson) has released over 40 records.
Most people haven’t heard a single one.
He’s spent his life quietly building a catalogue of aching, homespun folk - small songs full of soul and salt air.
Jon Hopkins is the opposite: a Mercury-nominated producer known for ambient depth, emotional precision and records that feel more like landscapes than songs.
But Diamond Mine isn’t a clash of styles. It’s a conversation.
And somehow, between Anderson’s fragile voice and Hopkins’ restrained electronics, they conjure something intimate, detailed and deeply human.
A kind of emotional cartography.
The Record: Diamond Mine (2011)
Diamond Mine doesn’t feel like an album. It feels like a place.
Not just because of the field recordings - clinking cups, rustling leaves, bicycle wheels - but because every sound is soaked in setting. These aren’t songs, they’re postcards from a Scottish harbour town.
Diamond Mine opens with First Watch. A kettle boiling, café chatter, mournful piano chords that transport you. You step into it - and the world starts to slow...
Then comes John Taylor’s Month Away - the first story. Piano-led, fragile, full of sea air and small regrets. King Creosote sings like he’s remembering something too painful, too vividly.
Bats in the Attic drifts closer to ambient than folk. Soft vocals, delicate strings, a sense of things slipping through your fingers.
Your Young Voice closes everything with a sadness so visceral it actually hurts.
The production by Jon Hopkins is understated and immense. Field recordings. Sub-bass rumbles. Textures so subtle they feel like memories.
It’s an album about everyday beauty. Boats, cafés, missed trains, long walks home. Nothing dramatic - somehow profound.
You don’t play Diamond Mine. You enter it.
And once you’ve been, part of you never leaves.
Play Now:
🔊 Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube
Start With:
- John Taylor’s Month Away - Life on the shore as poetry
- Bats in the Attic – Fragile, weightless, haunting
- Your Young Voice - The softest goodbye
