Diamond Mine (King Creosote & Jon Hopkins album)
| Diamond Mine | ||||
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| Studio album by King Creosote and Jon Hopkins | ||||
| Released | 28 March 2011 | |||
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| Language | English | |||
| Label | Domino | |||
| King Creosote and Jon Hopkins chronology | ||||
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| Aggregate scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 78/100 |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| The Skinny | |
| SputnikMusic |  |
Diamond Mine is a collaborative studio album by Scottish singer-songwriter King Creosote and English electronica musician Jon Hopkins, released on 28 March 2011 through Domino Records. Inspired by the East Neuk of Fife, the album combines Creosote's songs with field recordings by Hopkins. Upon release, Creosote stated: "I really don't know what to do next, because, in some ways, I'm at that peak. I don't know where to go from here." The album was subsequently followed by the EP, Honest Words in September 2011, and the double a-side single, "John Taylor's Month Away"/"Missionary" in February 2012. A deluxe version of the album, titled Diamond Mine (Jubilee Edition), was released in 2012.
Diamond Mine was nominated for the 2011 Mercury Prize, with Creosote noting, "I wasn't expecting it at all. [...] There's been a lot of people in the media nailing their colours to the mast with this record, and that's quite encouraging – to know that we've got supporters, and a lot of them. I'm not expecting to win, but just to be on that list. This is something I've been on the outside of forever, and now here we are. It's all good. It makes up for not selling records, anyway!" The album sold 25,000 copies in 2011.
Jon Hopkins had previously worked with King Creosote, producing the album, Bombshell (2007), and parts of Flick the Vs (2009). Diamond Mine took seven years to complete, with Creosote noting, "There was no goalpost in sight, it was just a song at a time." The album makes substantial use of Musique concrète, with Jon Hopkins noting that the songs suggest "a romanticised version of Fife. A lot of it's about my first experience of going there – about my first Homegame, when I fell totally in love with the place, and with Fence Records. It's a bit like my dream version of life. [...] It's like the way Paris appears in Amélie."
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