Tame Impala will continue the belated 10th anniversary celebration for its 2012 sophomore album Lonerism with a three-LP boxed set due out on May 26. The project features previously unreleased demos of the songs “Retina Show” and “Sidetracked Soundtrack” plus an entire vinyl side devoted to “assorted sketches” from 2010-2012.
Anniversary edition artwork for the box was designed by Erin Knutson and Immanuel Yang, with additional photography by Matt Sav and Tame Impala mastermind Kevin Parker. Tame Impala performed Lonerism in its entirety at a one-off special set last October at California’s Desert Daze festival, and Parker reflected on the album’s creation in an Instagram post the next day.
“Difficult to sum up what the album means to me at this point,” Parker wrote. “It was a pretty special time for me making the music. In a way it’s when I truly discovered myself as an artist. Coming off the back of Innerspeaker, I had this new sense of purpose … calling … whatever you want to call it. I had finally given myself permission to let music take over my being completely … to become totally immersed in my own world of recording music. So I had this new sense of creative freedom. I felt free to be ambitious, weird, pop, experimental, whatever, and didn’t feel judged because I was finally just doing it for myself and believed in myself. For the most part anyway … of course the day came to release it and it all came crashing down and I thought the album sucked and couldn’t even imagine people enjoying it. As it turns out, I was wrong … the album dropped and exceeded all my expectations and my life changed massively again, and I slowly realized the music was pretty good, again, which gave me a new sense of purpose, and the cycle starts again.”
Lonerism was nominated for the best alternative album Grammy and was Tame Impala’s first release to appear on The Billboard 200, where it reached No. 34. It includes two of the group’s best-known songs, “Elephant” and “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards.”
Tame Impala is not expected to tour in 2023, although Parker and company appear on “New Gold” from the forthcoming Gorillaz album Cracker Island, which will be released Feb. 24.
