The band Vinyl Williams, fronted by 22-year-old Lionel Williams, was opening for METZ on Wednesday night at the Echo, and for such a young band, their spaced-out sound was quite impressive: it was a succession of shoegazing numbers exploring a new psychedelia or turning totally krautrock-y.
Five an stage, their sonic wall was dense and sidereal with dreamy or echoing pop vocals, but as I thought that there was this idea of space and ‘being out there’ in all this, I looked at their set list and saw that the first song was conveniently titled ‘Space Rock it’.
One of their tunes, ‘Higher Worlds’ had undoubtedly Krautrock elements, with an ascending croon and a melody almost reminiscent of Radiohead, while creating a drugged-out mystery. ‘Stellarscope’ was a kaleidoscopic sun-drenched adventure morphing into a space odyssey mid song whereas ‘Harmonious Change’ and ‘Shield Zavior’ were some weird disoriented trips, and reminded me of something from Australian psychedelic rockers Tame Impala.
This was music that was immersing you into lots of layers and sound dimensions, like an intense inter-galatic swirling sea of synth, guitars, beats and electronics, and even exotic elements coming from nowhere. Some songs could just have been trippy druggy trance music, others were faster and epic while still hypnotic, but their set was over before I could figure out everything coming from the somnambulistic journey into their numerous parallel and enigmatic worlds.
But Vinyl Williams are releasing their album ‘Lemniscate’ soon, on November 12th, and since this mysterious term designs the infinity symbol ∞, it tells a lot about their ambitious plan.
Setlist:
Space Rock it
Harmonious Change
Head of Instinct
Grassy/ Gold Jam
Higher Worlds
Stellarscope