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Nate Amos - one half of the NY art pop duo Water From Your Eyes - is a font of seemingly endless musical invention with something close to 25-30 collections of songs to his name on bandcamp when creating under the guise of This Is Lorelei.
An absolute trove of unbridled imagination and what a delectable treat it all is too.
On This Is Lorelei’s freshest batch, ‘Box For buddy, Box For Star’, a sense of timelessness is epitomised in songs such as ‘Angel’s Eye’, ‘An Extra Beat For You And Me’ with their nods towards a spruced up re-treading of Americana as well as leaning into the psychedelic adventures of The Beatles‘ more whimsical songwriting in ‘A Song That Sings About You’.
That isn’t to say that this is an exercise in nostalgia fuelled plagiarisms for Nate.
These songs are vivid portraits of modern life where no production technique is left unturned with auto-tune affected vocalisations and patched in drum machine featuring heavily in album highlight ’Dancing In The Club’.
These bedroom production left turns thrown in amongst traditional songwriting techniques make for a collection of songs that are imbued with a millennial/Gen Z veneer, therefore marking out ‘Box For Buddy..’ as an album that could only have been released in the year 2024.
There really is something for everyone here.
FFO: Alex G, The Beatles (Revolver era), Elliott Smith.
Out now via Double Double Whammy.
Jun 29, 2024
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if you like some alt-country, this is like bedroom indie pop jangle folk with drum machines. allegedly this album was inspired by the time he saw stonehenge and it made him want to stop smoking weed.
loved this album and his 2019 Move Around EP is an all time personal fav of mine.
Dec 31, 2024
the solo project of 1/2 of Water From Your Eyes is dropping his "debut" solo album soon! been loving the lead up singles, but this one in particular really makes me excited.
i like the sweet, introspective slacker vocals and jittery little beat
Jun 12, 2024
Rarely am I so captivated with such an odd album. Here's my review:
Like some Star Wars fans think you should watch the movies out of order for the best storytelling of the overarching canon, I have a proposal for you before you dig into this baddie.
Start at the title track "Supermarket Woman", Track 9. One condition to proceed past this song is that you have to like it. If you don't like Track 9, then just don't bother with the rest of the album and save yourself an hour.
Now for the rest of you that are onboard, go from Track 9.
Best put by a friend, "it sounds like they told ai to make an album that sounds like 1950s commercialism and island music had a baby". I'd go to add that this supposed AI was a fan of Wesley Willis, too.
From this dystopian lo-fi bop (bop used sparingly in my dictionary) to the top of the album is like the whiplash from a double-shot of whiskey directly into snorting a line of blow...if whiskey was a liminal space fever-dream and the cocaine were the Balearic Islands.
You might also find yourself in the downtempo post-post-punk boogie woogie you dreamt of DJing for your one (1) friend that would tolerate it and the four (4) other bystanders hanging out at the record shop at 2pm on a Friday.
After a Spanish influence brings us into the first two songs of the album, we pivot into a dance track at Track 3, "9 Moons" (a remix release was put out as well), and onward through a gentle, rhythmic and interesting ride down to the "Lambrusco Party" (Track 5).
My energy keeping consistent, yet meditative, "Six Am" (Track 6) is exactly how I want to wake up after a molly bender on a pale-sand beach. It would motivate anyone for a mushroom-spinach omelette after a night like that.
I sank into Tracks 7 & 8, understanding the definition of an album-cut here, desperately edging on the story arc of how-in-the-fuck we get back to Track 9 through this album's story. I need a snack.
Like a cold-handed caress after a slap to the face, Track 10 & 11 wind me back down.
"In a State" (Track 12); Thom Yorke as fuck. What can't Lemonade Market do?
The proverbial needle hits the proverbial run-out groove on this record and it has me longing with questions in the music's absence. Questions about who these three white figures on the album cover are, where the chairs in which they're sitting were photographed, and why on god's green earth they used that font along the bottom.
Album Rating: 10/10
Feb 14, 2024
Top Recs from @sammyawkward
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Don’t you think that PI FYI is a bit like Wendy Cope’s poem The Orange if it was a social media platform? Everyone sharing and recommending the things that bring them meaning and joy in life. It’s so wholesome.
It’s been a minute but I have some time off this weekend so I will likely indulge some more of my thoughts and recs for the benefit of journaling.
Feb 22, 2025
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Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
and dress them in warm clothes again.
How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running
until they forget that they are horses.
It’s not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,
it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,
how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days
were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple
to slice into pieces.
Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it’s noon, that means
we’re inconsolable.
Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.
These, our bodies, possessed by light.
Tell me we’ll never get used to it.
Jul 1, 2024
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sweet, sweet temporary relief
Aug 11, 2024