Cornelius - Dream in Dream (2023) Hi-Res

Starting with 2001's Point, Cornelius' Keigo Oyamada took a gentler, but just as inventive, approach to his music by forsaking surprising contrasts in favor of thoroughly exploring a few ideas and sounds on each album. He seemed to reach the apogee of this style with Mellow Waves' delicate ebb and flow, but Dream in Dream might be an even lighter and smoother excursion. Oyamada uses a tightly curated palette to create its ambient-jazz-pop meditations on perception and impermanence: warm, buzzy synths, shimmering, droning electronic washes, and guitars that are either taut or rippling. He combines these 1970s and '80s-indebted musical building blocks with the same imaginative attention to detail that made Fantasma's collisions of the Beach Boys, Bach, and My Bloody Valentine a Shibuya-kei masterpiece, and Dream in Dream reveals other connections to Cornelius' music as a whole. "Change and Vanish" begins the album with a spacious, tender, Mellow Waves-like invitation before getting lost in spiraling synths. Driven by live drums, "Sparks"' laid-back but intricate pop is as captivating as Sensuous' "Breezin'" or Point's "Drop." Dream in Dream often resembles a more minimalist version of the latter album; like Point, its streamlined gestures express a universe of moods. "Night Heron"'s chilled-out funk has a mischievous slink that evokes the music of frequent collaborator Shintaro Sakamoto, who penned the lyrics to "Drifts," a flickering reverie embellished with theremin and clarinet. Two of the album's highlights touch on Cornelius' other projects and friendships. He gives a city pop sheen to "Environmental," a song he originally performed with the supergroup METAFIVE, whose founder, Yellow Magic Orchestra member Yukihiro Takahashi, passed a few months before Dream in Dream's release. Oyamada pays tribute to Takahashi again on "All Things Must Pass," naming its bittersweet acceptance of life's comings and goings after one of his favorite George Harrison songs. Cornelius balances these emotional moments with respites that give new meaning to the term soundscapes. Though they're never dull -- the distorted guitar solo that swells up on "Too Pure" keeps its flowing sonics from being too tasteful -- tracks such as "Dream in the Mist" are so wispy that they threaten to evaporate altogether. Dream in Dream may not have as much momentum as some of Cornelius' other work, but its bubbly, uplifting way of taking it all in stride is so pleasing that it's hard to complain much. And, as always, it's a treat for Oyamada's fans to trace how his music has evolved since his last album.