Transformation is a funny thing. In seeking self-improvement, we parse through our inner angels and demons, designating our better tendencies as core parts of our identity and dismissing problem areas as reflections of past selves we’re bound to outgrow — as if both sides aren’t integral parts of us. Personal growth can be a tricky and disingenuous prospect — often further muddied by capitalism, armchair psychologists and religious zealots — but it’s also an essential, life-affirming process worth enduring. Box for Buddy, Box for Star, the latest album from This Is Lorelei, explores this conundrum, functioning both as an earnest transformative exercise and a tongue-in-cheek takedown of the illusion of transformation.
Since 2012, New York City singer-songwriter Nate Amos (Water From Your Eyes, My Idea) has recorded and self-released hundreds of songs under the This Is Lorelei moniker, and perhaps surprisingly, after a decade plus, Box for Buddy, Box for Star marks the first attempt at a traditional, intentionally written full-length album. Amos describes the bulk of This Is Lorelei’s discography as “unedited diary entries,” written and recorded without much forethought, regard for genre or reverence for albums as thematic bodies of work, so oddly enough, Box for Buddy, Box for Star is both a fresh start and the culmination of years of diligent, interesting songwriting.
In the summer of 2022, while working on the album, Amos was laser-focused on personal growth and felt an unfamiliar but pressing need to reflect honestly on his life through lyricism. Emotionally, it was a tough period, especially coupled with his mission to write without smoking weed — a substance he relied on nearly every day for the last 15 years — for the first time.
“I had just finished a tour with Water From Your Eyes, during which I laid on the ground at Stonehenge for 40 minutes and decided to stop smoking weed,” Amos explains. “Initially, this album was just a challenge to make music without getting high, and I was worried I wouldn’t come up with anything at all. I isolated myself from pretty much everyone and wrote songs all summer. I was pretty broke and significantly depressed, but also in a sort of healthy mental demolition mode, trying to reimagine how I wanted to move forward with my life. For better or worse, what I made ended up being a delayed recovery album, largely dealing with more significant addictions that I kicked a year earlier.”
Much to his surprise, it was a creatively abundant time, yielding roughly 70 songs. To pull this off, Amos hunkered down in his Brooklyn apartment for three months and followed a peculiar daily routine: eat ramen, smoke cigarettes, do 500 push-ups and 1,500 sit-ups, lift guitars like dumbbells, intermittently watch Texas-Mexico crime drama The Bridge and crucially, write songs. “Whenever I got fidgety because I couldn’t smoke weed, I would just do push-ups,” Amos recalls. “It got to a point where I was like, ‘I’m gonna light this cigarette, and I’m gonna do push-ups until I’ve smoked the entire cigarette, and then I’m gonna try to write another song.'”
©
2024
Globe Hall
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