Vinyl Williams - Lemniscate

In an interview with DIY last year, Lionel Williams, the 21 year old Los Angeles musician, producer and artist who works under the name Vinyl Williams declared that his music is, “a meeting ground between the cosmos and the earth.” It is a grandiose statement that almost perfectly represents the sky-scraping ambition of his debut LP ‘Lemniscate’.

As you would possibly expect for an album that is named after a term in algebraic geometry describing figure eight curves as well as some other complex mathematical functions, ‘Lemniscate’ is far from an easy listen: it is a record that demands full attention for maximum value. Vinyl Williams’ music is intensely immersive.

The mood is disorientating and woozy from the outset, Williams being particularly adept at creating massive and, at times, overpowering sounds capes full of druggy malevolence. Tracks like the psych rock of ‘Higher Worlds’ are extraordinary in their transcendent power. As a listener you feel discombobulated and confused, the sounds are familiar but the delivery is oblique and indistinct, and at times, it is reminiscent of a sedated garage rock band from an entirely different stratosphere.

Vinyl Williams is an artist that relishes the opportunity to play with sound and the effect sound can have on a listener. Unfortunately that approach can also lead to quite a bit of aimless drifting, an affliction that lets down parts of the album; tracks fade out into formless washes of ambient noise while melodies are for the most part indistinct. Obliqueness is very much king. This is disappointing as the few overt pop melodies that can be heard are very lovely, in particular the jangling submerged guitar of ‘Harmonious Change’ and the dream pop swoon of ‘Grassy’.

You get the distinct sense throughout ’Lemniscate’ that Vinyl Williams could easily be a very successful singular pop artist but that he wants and expects much more from music than that. As it is ‘Lemniscate’ is a fascinating debut from a bewitching producer that clearly has immeasurable talent to harness.