“Turn on, tune in, drop out” was Timothy Leary’s famous LSD evangelist motto in the 1960s counterculture revolution. It also applies to many individuals’ sense of confinement. Certainly, dropping out was unavoidable in certain sectors of society, which shut down; nevertheless, the United States is now experiencing something of a love affair with psychedelics, and quarantine has played a role. Psilocybin and other psychedelics are becoming increasingly accessible, and several states and cities have decriminalized them (Detroit did so earlier this month). Recent studies revealed an increase in psychedelic use among college students (and a rise in LSD-taking overall in the United States).

Of course, they require some music to enjoy on their journey. During a period of lockdown, English artist and producer Jon Hopkins, known for his emotional and sometimes spacey riffs on techno and house music, attempted to figure out what was going on in his head. In January, he was heartbroken over a split between him and his significant other while wrapping up his beatless album, which was inspired by worldwide and internal excursions. The product of these sessions is Music for Psychedelic Therapy, which was released last month. According to a recent Zoom, Hopkins described the work as “not so much a piece of music as it is a series of locations or varieties of energy you pass through.”

According to Hopkins, his prior psychedelic of choice, DMT, supplied him the knowledge he needed to go far off the grid with an LP totally unlike his typical quantized dance music. The ethereal atmosphere of Therapy was “liberating,” according to Hopkins. There are no tempos, time signatures, or grids in Therapy; and this was quite freeing. “Taking away that just left all of this space for creativity with layers of sound and waves of complexity and simplicity, as well as more emotional content that I can’t get through programming drums.” It was ketamine, rather than DMT, that had the biggest impact on the album: he cut DMT out in 2019 because of growing anxiety prior to drug intake, and he’d been using it since (though he’s quick to point out that he does it maybe once a month). Therapy has an hour-and-a-half duration, which is the average length of a ketamine experience.

To reiterate, Hopkins is not a doctor nor does he act as one on TV, and the fact that his name sounds similar to the well-known Baltimore university/hospital Johns Hopkins is just a coincidence. “I’m just kind of following my own path, and I’m doing it as a shaman would do so in a ceremony.” Then, for psychedelic therapy, Music For Psychedelic Therapy is a proposition rather than a prescription. Hopkins explained that the title came to him while he was tripping, after he’d completed at least half of the album. “It was literally almost written in front of me at the end of this trip,” he added. “And it was just like, ‘There’s no alternative. You have to call it now.’” He likes it because the name pays homage to Brian Eno’s Music for Airports, a groundbreaking 1978 album that effectively defined ambient music while also establishing a thrillingly high bar for the music genre.

After reading Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind, a sort of Intro to Psychonautics for the layperson, and learning how crucial music can be for the two pillars of successful trips—set and setting (that is: you’re more likely to avoid a bad trip if your attitude going into it is positive and unburdened, and your surroundings are comfortable) — Hopkins did not adhere to any standard layout when laying out his musical journey experience. There are examples of them—for example, Johns Hopkins researchers developed a playlist “to express the sweeping arc of the typical medium- or high-dose psilocybin session,” according to their website—but this group was more concerned with the title as “a contribution to the conversation about music within this context and its importance.”

“While I don’t pretend to know what’s best for individuals in that situation, I went out of my way to make it feel both warm and secure,” he added. “It doesn’t imply that it isn’t full of tense situations. It’s intended to be played at a high volume, and you’re supposed to feel the sub-bass rumble in your bones. But I wanted it to leave you in a position where you feel safe exploring some aspect of yourself, or perhaps be enthralled by nature’s majesty, for example, in the cave segment. It’s something I’ve been interested in for a long time. The recurring motif of field recordings that incorporate natural sounds is really just the stuff I wanted to experience first-hand while in those locations.”

The second half of the record, which comprises a three-track suite in the cave section, includes ambient sounds recorded in Ecuador’s Tayos Caves. The bard added, “My trip there in 2018 gave me the idea for Music for Psychedelic Therapy. It’s rather appropriate that the origin of this album was deep underground in the Amazon, whereas every other record began in a room in London or Los Angeles with sounds played around,” he explained. The English woodlands near where Hopkins experienced his DMT experiences provide the source for additional field recordings. In any case, the record was composed and mixed with Ableton, which is known for its music-making capabilities. Other sounds come from his Moog synth and piano (albeit heavily processed), while the song’s tone was formed by the music software. “A lot of things stem from manipulating sounds that are already there,” he added. “I explore what they’re saying until they sound like what I’m searching for. Until I find it, I have no idea what I’m looking for frequently. It’s like putting together a puzzle, but you don’t know what the completed picture is supposed to look like until it’s finished. It’s really quite cerebral, and it doesn’t require much technical ability.”

I’d been doing Music for Psychedelic Therapy while sober for weeks (I like listening to ambient/drone while I’m meditating since it provides me with something tangible to focus my thoughts on). The next day, after taking a modest dose of psilocybin to immerse myself in the music as intended, I had one of the most strange days of my life. It was an experience beyond words.

The bells on the opening track begin with a series of bends before seemingly whoosh up into and past outer space—my eyes covered, my thoughts tumbling visual pathways as the sound reverberated in my ears. Finally, scraping noises on “Love Flows Over Us in Prismatic Waves” etched thin patterns into my mental vision, and the feeling of racing in “Deep in the Glowing Heart” put what felt like G force on my body. I felt trapped and protected while listening to the “Tayos Caves, Ecuador” suite. I questioned how he knew how to score my perceptions before realizing that what I was seeing was visual scoring to his sound. I’m not sure whether the music aided therapy, but it was lovely to have as a cushion for the day’s journey (ambient music is my favorite soundtrack for a trip). The sounds are frequently soft and beautiful since life is also. I wept throughout both plays of the final song, “Sit Around the Fire,” which features Ram Dass’ words. “There once was a fire in each of us, and for some of us, there appear to be only ashes now,” says Dass in an audio clip that East Forest sent to Hopkins’ collaborator. “But when we dig in the ashes, we find one ember, and very carefully fan that ember. Blow on it; it brightens… The ember grows stronger, the flame flickers a little, and soon you realize that all we’ll do for eternity is sit around the fire.”

Although he was brought up as an atheist, his psychedelic encounters have cause him to adopt a more combative approach. “There’s no way to convey the DMT experience in words. It’s beyond description, save for suggesting that you’re in the presence of ultimate reality or some form of God. And I don’t mean a creature when I say “God.” I’m talking about an intelligence that is limitless and lies behind everything, this self-organizing aspect of the cosmos or whatever you want to call it, the origin of all things,” he explained. “To feel that and to go, ‘Oh, well, that’s just the structure of the brain,’ it’s just as valid to say that in order to say, ‘That’s a thing that we’re all intricately linked with,’ which is my conclusion.”

During our interview, he was similarly deep regarding the ties that run through his work.

“It feels like a weird superpower to be able to just sit there and create noises. You can enter those sounds as though they were a location via the psychedelic experience, and then you may visit them,” he said. “What I’m proposing isn’t just some new world. That’s what we’re talking about when we talk about creating your own universe. I’m actually building the locations I desire to see and then offering them to everyone by releasing it. When people tell you that what you’re doing is wonderful, it’s much more difficult to believe them when they explain how important this work is. The feelings of elation and accomplishment I experienced when creating this were unlike anything I’ve ever known. It was fantastic.”