Vinyl Williams has come a long way since his 2012 debut Lemniscate. Initially pegged with the somewhat dismissive tag "chillwave," Vinyl "Lionel" Williams has continued to be guided by a more attentive muse than most and now exemplifies a near-perfect chakra alignment and psychedelic harmony on his sixth LP, Cosmopolis. Representing a psychological tributary and cosmic extension bridge between the fertile crescents of the nervous, vibrational stir of pre-post rock Seefeel, the extended wavy welcome and transformative ritualism of the 5th Dimension, and the relaxed effortless charm of a talk-therapy heeled Anton Newcombe, his music finds no limits to its ascension- extending into the sky like a cloud-piercing beacon of evanescence and integral knowing. Cosmopolis benefits from its various, diverse, and manifold sonic facets and relies on the strength of its integrated threads to manifest over more acreage than would seem possible. Despite Lionel's commitment to analog and retrotastic, hand-selected polyphony, his sound always feels like it is growing and gaining strength through its proliferation and progressing towards a definite, brighter future. His sound leaps from the luminous and tangy "Beaming," to the crystalline cleanse and visionary reflection chamber of "Paracosm," to the energized heterostatic exchange of "Telaculum," and finally to the smokey psych-soul resurgence of "Dream House" like a radiant empyrean dolphin bounding between the outwardly curling waves of an expanding nebula. Cosmopolis is warm and oaky, cozy and inviting, while preserving a sense of adventure that consistently finds new venues of exploration within the kaleidoscopic dimensional folds of its starlighted, multiform, ecstasy staind, internally generated glow.
