Maybe it’s because he’s a twin, but Aaron Dessner says he feels like he was born to collaborate. “My brother Bryce and I grew up sharing a room and playing music at the same time, so it’s always been natural for me to develop ideas with other people.” 

Dessner is a New York-based musician, composer and producer, best known for his work with Taylor Swift (including the 2020 Grammy Awards’ Album of the Year winner, folklore and its sister album evermore) and with Grammy Award-winning alternative band The National, whose albums he has co-written and co-produced since the group’s inception in 1999. He began producing outside projects almost a decade ago, developing his own distinctive sound and approach, and an ability to connect with artists from disparate genres, whether it’s Sharon Van Etten’s breakthrough album Tramp, the delicate craftsmanship of Irish artist Lisa Hannigan, or the haunting gothic blues of up-and-coming singer-songwriter Adia Victoria.

His studio, Long Pond, near Hudson, New York, has become a creative oasis for Dessner and his collaborators – a place where the beauty of the woods and the water makes it easy to get lost in the moment. “The best music happens when you aren’t overthinking or putting too much pressure on yourself,” he says. “What is most rewarding for me now is to write music and share it with other musicians, to see what strange alchemy happens when someone else adds their own voice, emotion and ideas into it. I think every idea is worth chasing, and every experiment is worthwhile. Sometimes what seems like a discardable fragment is actually the seed of a great song.” 

Dessner also collaborates with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon on their collaborative project Big Red Machine, and co-founded international music festivals including the Eaux Claires Music & Arts Festival in Wisconsin, Boston Calling, and the National’s own Homecoming festival in Cincinnati. Along with Bryce, Vernon and a community of musicians and creatives, he launched the 37d03d (PEOPLE) collective in 2016. 37d03d produces multi-artist events with the goal of supporting and encouraging spontaneous collaboration. 

Jon Hopkins is an electronic artist, producer and classically trained composer. He has forged a reputation for music that marries the dance floor with the devotional and for live performances that are charged with a rapt, sensuous beauty. His output flows from rugged techno to transcendent choral music, from solo acoustic piano to psychedelic ambient.

Initially gaining exposure through his work with Brian Eno and Coldplay, he gradually found his voice as a solo artist, blending visceral beats with serene, meditative textures. The Mercury Prize nominated Immunity (2013) and Grammy-nominated Singularity (2018), two albums of spiritually minded techno and ambient tracks, were followed in 2021 by Music for Psychedelic Therapy where he switched direction, creating something egoless, introspective and made with raw honesty.

By turns devotional, empowering and nurturing, RITUAL, released in August this year, is a culmination of themes explored throughout his 22-year career, and acts as the kinetic counterpart to Music for Psychedelic Therapy. A single piece unfolding over eight chapters, RITUAL is personified by depth and contrast. Taking ceremony, spiritual liberation and the hero's journey as inspiration, it taps into an ancient and primal energy

Hopkins has many producer, remixer and collaborator credits to his name, most recently for contributions to Coldplay’s Moon Music and Charli XCX’s Brat and its completely different but still also brat. Film credits include Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones and Gareth Edwards’ classic indie sci-fi film Monsters, which earned an Ivor Novello nomination for Best Original Score, Falling Into Place, Wilding and All Of This Unreal Time and also for the National Theatre Live production of Hamlet.