Cornelius announces new album REFRACTIONS with Sean Ono Lennon collaboration

The record marks a deliberate shift in method for an artist who has spent more than three decades constructing dense, meticulously detailed sonic worlds. “This time, instead of turning inward, I wanted to open the work through interaction with others,” Cornelius says. “I’ve come to feel more strongly that reality is not something completed within oneself, but something shaped through relationships and exchanges.” The collaborators speak to this: alongside Lennon, the credits include Arto Lindsay, Bid, and longtime co-conspirator Shintaro Sakamoto.

The creative link between Cornelius and Lennon reaches back to the late 1990s, when Oyamada first encountered Lennon’s experimental pop sensibility. In the years since, Lennon invited Cornelius into Yoko Ono’s reformed Plastic Ono Band, and the two have performed together in Los Angeles, New York and London. “Aeons” is their most direct collaboration, with Lennon contributing vocals and lyrics. “I’m always honoured to work with Keigo; he’s one of my favourite humans on the Earth Planet,” Lennon says of the partnership.

Speaking about the track, Cornelius explains that it emerged from a period of external change. “As the world and my surroundings changed at an intense speed, I think all of that inevitably shaped this work,” he says. “Rather than expressing these ideas directly, I approached them structurally - exploring continuity, transformation, and multiple coexisting states within a single, uninterrupted flow of time.”

Cornelius first broke internationally with 1997’s Fantasma, a landmark in experimental pop that drew comparisons to The Beach Boys, Beck, and The Beastie Boys. In recent years, its b-side “Typewrite Lesson” found an unexpected second life on TikTok and won support from Rosalía, pulling a new generation toward his back catalogue. REFRACTIONS draws from a similarly broad well: psychedelic pop, ambient music, Brazilian tropicália, kosmische experimentation, and minimalist composition.

Alongside the album, Cornelius has confirmed a Japanese tour this September and the Barbican date in London, marking a rare UK appearance for an artist who remains quietly influential across continents. Tickets for the Barbican show are not yet on sale.