Celestial music has a vastly unknown history, the phrase first being coined in the early 70s by Iasos, Greek-American musician who began studying Bossa Nova & Jazz, before he became enraptured by an ambient radio station that began playing in his head. Alan Watts, a friend of Iasos, was quoted in stating “Iasos makes the classical music of the new age” – which gave rise to the musical genre. Music pioneers like Laraaji have found their own center in expressing celestial music, emanating his own aspects of Eastern mysticism & unique forms of meditation, proven to make you bliss out f’days.
In the last few decades we’ve seen celestial music work its way into pop. Vinyl Williams is an LA-based artist that has a history of combining these subtle aspects into harmonious pop music & visionary artwork. Collaborating with like-minded self-producers such as Chaz Bear of Toro Y Moi, Morgan Delt, and Ruban Nielsen of UMO, & Samira Winter he’s built a universe of palatial 3D environments, and recorded 6 albums to date.
Vinyl Williams is now onto his 7th album, Aeterna, announced for an August 4th release via Harmony Records. On the album, he leads the listener through his most orchestrated exoplanet experience thus far. You can pre-order the album here.
Coming from a long line of LA-based musicians, Williams follows the feelings of Love, Brian Wilson, Strawberry Alarm Clock, and producer/arrangers like Curt Boettcher and Burt Bacharach to create his own lush sunshine pop paradise. One can also easily notice the many inspirations of Brazilian masterminds such as Arthur Verocai, Lo Borges, Nelson Angelo, as well as British dream pop / shoegaze production of Robin Guthrie and A.R. Kane. The many-riveted layers create dreamscapes of pure imagination.
Williams has also invented his own system of understanding relationships, which is the music of birthdays. An app will be launched this year – allowing users to hear the precise microtonal music of their birthdays, and receive descriptions of what the intervals might mean.
The Vinyl Williams website is an interactive treasure hunt where you can find the full album if you follow the clues, plus some hidden demos of different projects.