Scan Hopper

With plenty of weird moments, like the baby-talk chorus in “On Nonesuch Road” and eerie whispers in “16:21,” this seven-track effort—intended as a comprehensive 13-minute work—proves that Scan Hooper’s aesthetic is a different breed. And it’s this kind of novelty that sets them apart from the crowd. - Austin Monthly

What may be most impressive about the eponymous debut album from Scan Hopper is that it was mostly a solo work, the effort of Scott Hopkins before he assembled his current quintet. The album, released in 2009, is dense yet remains accessible, shifting from ominous psych and dark wave dominance that at times hearkens Can, to catchier and more jaggedly stripped punk bursts, and calmer, understated pop textures. - AustinSound.net

With Scan Hopper we appear to have another enigma on our hands. Scott Hopkins and his band (Scan Hopper) from Austin Texas and their self titled album seems to put into a blender elements of the psychedelic think more of "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" era Pink Floyd , mixes it with the ambient parts of Brian Eno and is all held together with a voice reminiscent of Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground.

It is advised to listen to this album as a whole every time and it’s not hard to see why because Scan Hopper have created an experience that takes them onto a flashback ride of messy apartments, science legends, a guest appearance by a cat and a duck (seriously!) amongst many other things. Scott seems to sing in a similar style as his influences but he also reminds you more of the Monsters of Folk style singers in recent years such as Bright Eyes and given he’s managed o play SXSW for two years running he seems to be doing well for himself. The band as a whole manage to keep the madness contained enough to make it tolerable and catchy enough on songs like 'Yoga School Dropout' and the Twilight Zone-esque 'Misfits of Science'.

What I personally like about this self titled album is how Scan Hopper have managed to achieve on the first record a production that doesn’t go into self indulgent territory and reminds me of the late Sparklehorse in style and substance. Scan Hopper also knows not to outstay the welcome with one track going post 5 mins at the very beginning ‘The Bureaucrat’ but this does lead to a lot of interludes which may get a bit tiresome to some after a while. Since the album’s release Scan Hopper have become a live band which should be intriguing to see how the songs on this album will be expanded with others playing the instruments throughout.

On the whole the album is a reasonable debut that should spread through word of mouth about Scan Hopper and allows more expansion in the future for this to become a real, legitimate band rather than the solo project that it currently feels like. - Altsounds.com

Scan Hopper writes, performs, and produces some of the most disquieting, yet profoundly hypnotic songs ever recorded. The vocals are soft and delicate; often breaking into harmonies more consistent with the 60’s folk era. Yet the music covers 70’s Psychedelic territory with sprinkles of the more recent shoegaze influences just creeping in. If you took songs from the 1967 musical “Hair” and did a mash-up with music by The Byrds and Spacemen 3 you’d come closer to understanding Scan Hopper’s intricate sound mix.

However, this in no way detracts from the recordings; in fact, it often enhances them, by imparting an otherworldly quality to their music. It would be enough that Scott Hopkins has the talent to write and perform his pop concoctions, but he also has the added talent of being creatively indulgent in his home studio.

Although the “Scan Hopper 2” album can be described as a DIY project, it is a richly produced and a sonically complex body of work. Listen with wonder, to “Living In Sane/Travelogue” where Scott overlays a beautiful melody and gently sung vocals with diverse elements such as pianos, white noise, wah-wah guitar sounds, banging drums and clashing cymbals. It may seem like cluttered hodgepodge, but in truth it is an astonishingly disciplined song. As is “N%”, a powerful, driving instrumental arrangement, that would make a perfect movie score for a Mission Impossible movie. Listening to the diversity of the tracks you only get some idea of the multiple essences that make up the Scan Hopper sound.

Scott Hopkins together with guitarist Brian Purington, drummer Ryan Nelson, bassist David Thomas Jones, and Rachel Shaw who adds vocals, keyboards, violin and percussion, veers between a myriad of styles and who-knows-what more in “Scan Hopper2”. In the middle of it all Scott crafts a sonic extravaganza of ‘timeless’ sounds, strange and surreal and enticingly abstract.

“Scan Hopper2″ includes some of Scott’s best collaborative work yet, while the production and mixes on the album are rich and laden, intense and boisterous, and perhaps the best overall indicator of everything he was capable of, at the time of recording. It contains 12 tracks to be played at maximum volume, from which it is best to dig out your own personal highlights. Mine are without any doubt, “Sans Angelo”, “N%” and “Cuest(In Cerebral Bookends)”.

Is this the music of the future, or music of the past? I’m not sure, as you get the continued sensation that Scott Hopkins is not only creating and playing music, but playing with the very experiences, of recording music. However, his doesn’t seem to be about puerile showmanship or technique for its own sake, as “Scan Hopper 2” is ultimately the consequential expression of an inquisitive and creative soul. A rare breed in today’s music. - Jamsphere

Seven tracks in 13 minutes, Scan Hopper's latest EP – the quintet's third release – is best consumed in one sitting. The experimental art-pop troupe re-posted the brief musical about a girl who "disappeared in a lightning flash," the brainchild of singer/guitarist Scott Hopkins, on Bandcamp as one solitary track. Track gaps, quoth Hopkins, were "not what the artist intended." Mariana Bridges settles between tranquil and disturbing, with segments like the repetitive guitar and vocal back-and-forth of "The Bridgeses" evoking an expansiveness and peace. "On Nonesuch Road" stomps that tranquility, employing a gang of wayward animals and creepy-sounding kids for a disturbing cacophony. It preceeds a sweeping whirlwind ("Twisted Air") that spells trouble for Hopkins' subject. Singer Rachael Shaw's coda: "It's just so strange inside my brain." - Austin Chronicle

The 14-song debut from Scott Hopkins keeps eye-level with psych and New Wave touchstones, while the dreamy strum of "Notes or the Face (Plumage Rock)" needs "Misfits of Science" to jerk the album out of slumber and find its footing in the more up-tempo songs. - Austin Chronicle

Hmmm...interesting. Scan Hopper is the one man band comprised of Scott Hopkins. This, the band's debut self-titled album, contains tracks recorded from December 2008 to March 2009 but "several elements were recorded well before then, and a majority of the music was actually composed between 2002 and 2004." Scott has apparently been influenced by music from the vinyl era. Instead of predictable canned creations, the tracks on this album seem strangely out of synch with music being released in 2009. And that, of course, is a very good thing. Considering how many people have begun collecting vinyl again, we can't help but think that this album would be a prime candidate to be released on vinyl as well (perhaps this is already in the works?). We can't come up with many similar sounding artists or comparisons...but some of the ideas presented here remind us of Joy Division and even The Residents at times. A bizarre hodge podge of ideas and sounds. - Babysue.com

Self described as “Austin’s answer to a question no one asked,” Scan Hopper released their second and latest album, the aptly named Scan Hopper 2, in October of 2011. Despite the studio-quality of the album, the album stands as a “true DIY project – recorded, mixed and mastered in [a] bedroom,” and flows as a single story, divided by tracks as a novel is divided by chapters.

Scan Hopper consists of Scott Hopkins, Brian Purington, Ryan Nelson, David Thomas and Rachael Shaw, and is based in Austin, Texas. Drawing inspiration from The Beatles and sounding strikingly similar to an acoustic version of Electric Light Orchestra, Scan Hopper creates in a very chromatic, cinematic, and theatrical exploration of folk and classic rock. Lyrically pervaded by malaise and electronically mastered to psychedelic-folk perfection, Scan Hopper 2 is a musical adventure melding vintage influences with current tales.

Individual pieces of note include Landlocked, Living In Sane/Travelogue, and Jules 2. The album itself is best heard as one whole piece, as the transitions between songs are just as engaging as the songs themselves, though certain songs stand out as individual works of art.

Wave, in particular, is strikingly evocative of the heavily vocoded works of ELO; a lilting rhythm rising and falling in arpeggios with enchantingly edited vocals which create a sense of musical illusion, an “acoustic whisper” that resolves to a Beatles-esque cadence, followed by the lyrical adventure that is Sans Angelo.

Following suit is the atmospheric, ethereal, and delightful Scarlett Says, which uses catchy and diverse riffs, edited masterfully.
Likely to be a live favourite, Living In Sane/Travelogue in particular is lyrically written to be a complex artwork with a catchy melody and easy rhyme scheme; classic rock piano riffs and choral work in the chorus guarantee the piece to be a crowd pleaser. Scan Hopper promises to be an engaging and thrilling live act after Living In Sane/Travelogue, as well as the heavy rock instrumental heavy epic N%.

Scan Hopper have in Scan Hopper 2 a beautiful and collaborative work, surreally elemental and “mastered for optimum enjoyment rather than optimum loudness.” Play the album the whole way through, with the volume as high as possible, and get lost in the musical adventure that waits! - Indiemunity

There is something wildly authentic, impertinently original and nihilistically rebellious about if and when you name your second self titled album with a numeric indication of its sequential nature, and this exactly is what Austin based ensemble Scan Hopper did with their 2011 second full length Scan Hopper 2. The music, as noted on the group's BandCamp site, is optimized rather for optimum enjoyment, as opposed of being optimized for maximum loudness paua'. The claim is well supported by the perpetuated rendition of the soulfully realized space/psychedelic/soft/chillout rock you will find on this declaration. The content occupies a narrative musical space between Pink Floyd and the rock traditions of late '60s and early '70s, though veterans claim that if you remember the '60s, you weren't even there. Read on to know more about the disc.

The bulk of the album is peaceful, always elegant, and relatively restrained, sporting a good amount of time via inspecting the referenced Pink Floyd influences, yet all this does not stop the fabric from turning more intense throughout its middle section, a field on which the psychedelic space-rock opera feel reigns rampant/prominent while maintaining the right to pull your mind through a warp drive for the mere fun of it. The disc is an immediate recommendation for the devoted fan of said genre, and an easy one for all other music lovers, prime reason being that rare are the times when this type of music is realized with a deliberately and intriguingly fragile stature - the term is a compliment right now - to it.

Granted, with some particular guitar riffs and gritty tempos, the band even offers tentative nods to the more zoned-out variant of Nirvana, and, to be perfectly frank, Nirvana never ever revolved around the mere timeless heft of the distorted guitar. I wish to reiterate my claim though that the music mostly is quasi-meditative and forgivingly morose in a Pink Floydian way, even courting the vistas of atmospheric ambient with certain declarations, like "Grey Paint on Brick", nice complimentary violin section included. And what about the very next track, "Jules 2"? I swear the song starts out with the very same chord Charles Manson uses to open his song "Sad Sad Game" with. Listen to the original, then to the Guns 'N Roses cover of "Sad Sad Game", then to this particular Scan Hopper song, and inform me if you think I'm mistaken. Given that the track is 1 minute long, Scan Hopper might be out there to mindhack the "I see what you did there!!" out of you, and they might have done that with me already. The voices agree.

On Scan Hopper 2, the Pink Floydesque singing is especially well realized throughout, as it oftentimes is supported by luscious bright female chorus presence all in the spirit of a highly blissful Abba overdose. Smartly constrained and spiceful. The production values are especially top tier and exemplary on the declaration, particularly when considering that the album is the direct result of a DYI endeavor. The LP is a living/breathing and quite significant testament of the fact that competent music production really is not a matter of molesting the volume knob, it rather is a matter of accounting your sense of the sonic space OR the very lack of it.

Check out Scan Hopper's badassly - no irony in my world - titled second album, Scan Hopper 2 at their BandCamp site below. - Noise Shaft

Today’s technology has made it much easier to record a full record on your own. Great things have come from one person locked away with a guitar, microphone and computer. One disadvantage of this is not having the input from other musicians or engineers to tweek the sound into something that may be a better listen for the masses. Our latest find started as a solo bedroom project as has now grown to a full band ready to share their sound with the world. Let us introduce you to Scan Hopper.

The sound of Scan Hopper can best be described as psychedelic shoegaze DIY rock. Scott Hopkins had started writing and recording his first solo album back in 2002. It took 7 long years for the release of the record in 2009. The totally DIY project garnered some favorable critical reviews and surprisingly solid radio support. More importantly, the record enabled Scott to recruit some talented musicians from the Austin area including guitarist Brian Purington, drummer Ryan Nelson, bassist DT Jones, and Rachel Shaw more recently to add vocals and her multi-instrumental skills.

Now as a complete band the group went back to work to record the follow up record Scan Hopper 2. Although the album is also home recorded in the DIY style, there are large leaps forward here in songwriting, performance, and production. This is one of the benefits of having many musical minds involved in the process. The opener ‘Landlocked’ is a slowly building mellow but catchy introduction to what you are about the hear over the next 11 songs. The harder rocking punk feel and vocal style of ‘Sans Angelo’ brought memories of classic Joy Division to my ears. This is a song where the listener is stuck on the edge of their seat waiting for the explosion. Later in the album ‘Holy Parachute’ offers that burst in a catchy melodies and punk riffs. The old school English no wave punk feel remains throughout. The interesting song’ N%’ might be the best on the album even with its unique flow.

Bottom line; Scan Hopper 2 is an album that should be experienced from start to finish. Go get a listen for yourself here: http://scan.bandcamp.com/album/scan-hopper-2 - Indie Band Guru

Scan Hopper, from Austin, Texas, has just released one of the strangest solid, well-made records I’ve ever heard. Their self-titled album makes me think that it was written as a score for a Dracula movie I’ve never seen, but, like, a really good Dracula movie!

Sure, the music is dark, then hopeful, then dark, then charming, but that’s not what you’re focusing on whilst listening… More so, you’re trying to wrap your head around what’s going on, and why! This is an album that could have gone horribly wrong, but Scott Hopkins and his crew made some crazy calls during the writing process which turned this baby in to one of the most interesting underground records out there right now.

I won’t and can’t compare this project to Radiohead, but they do force you in to a kindred thought ——-> ‘Now how did they come up with that?’
See what you think…. I bet you’ll have an opinion either way…. - LoveSound Magazine