Waxahatchee are covering him in front of Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan boomer crowds. Current it guy and golden Geese frontman Cameron Winter is trying his hand at his songs on stage in Carnegie Hall lately, too. Meanwhile, MJ Lenderman had already recorded his take on some diamonds that shined as brightly as the original before anyone. It’s safe to say that Nate Amos of Water From Your Eyes and his solo moniker This Is Lorelei are probably your favorite indie artist’s favorite indie artist right now, and is in a very different place than where he was just one year ago when he released the project’s first proper album, the acclaimed Box for Buddy, Box for Star.

This is to say that whether it’s in his avant-pop ioiosyncraticities of collaboration with Rachel Brown or his own doings of indie-pop prolificity alone, Amos has graduated from Brooklyn’s always-burgeoning DIY scene status and joined the ranks of all of the aforementioned in a new class of indie prestige that knows good shit when it’s written. Amos might humble disagree with that narrative, as the scrapbook release of some of This Is Lorelei’s earliest works spanning from 2014 thru 2021 re-recorded this past year as Holo Boy make it abundantly clear that he’s always held a refined pen within his craft that carries on a timeless, tuneful indie-rock, indie-pop, and power-pop hydrahead wordsmith appeal to it that’s something of a next gen kindred to the songbooks of Stephin Merritt and his Magnetic Fields, Jens Lekman, Fountains of Wayne, and Elliott Smith.

Keeping in spirit to these 10 songs’ origins, he didn’t pour any more time in his makeshift Bud-Stuy apartment studio than what was spent on recording them the first time around, with the only difference being the inclusion of live drums. It just pops more vividly while the curation of the Bandcamp collage tells an integral story in his own evolution for both those newly incoming and already familiar with his work. By the time the sunny So California breeziness of “I Cant Fail” predicate the current revivals respectively on tracks like the punky dream-popped “Dreams Away” and “Name The Band” or the crinkled alt-country strums of “SF & GG” and “This Is A Joke” before spangling into the synth-distorted title track, you hear not only how far Amos has come in reworking foundations into something his own, but having a sixth-sense knack for being ahead of the curve before anyone even knew there was one to begin with. A true holo boy transcending timelines, indeed.

Highlights: “SF & GG”, “Name The Band”, “Holo Boy”

This Is Lorelei’s Holo Boy is available now on Double Double Whammy.

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