Tame Impala‘s Kevin Parker has shared a statement reflecting on the 10th anniversary of the project’s 2012 album, Lonerism.

In an Instagram post, Parker writes that it’s “difficult to sum up what the album means to me at this point.”

“It was a pretty special time for me making the music,” Parker shares. “In a way it’s when I truly discovered myself as an artist.”

Lonerism was Parker’s sophomore effort as Tame Impala following 2010’s Innerspeaker. In following Innerspeaker, Parker felt he had a “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,” Parker writes. “I had this new sense of creative freedom. I felt free to be ambitious, weird, pop, experimental, whatever, and didn’t feel judged bacuse I was finally just doing it for myself and believed in myself.”

Still, Parker admits that he was nervous about how Lonerism would be received and came to believe that “the album sucked” and that he “couldn’t even imagine people enjoying it.” Of course, the opposite happened, and Lonerism became Tame Impala’s breakout album in the U.S., spawning the single “Elephant.”

“The album dropped and exceeded all my expectations and my life changed massively again,” Parker writes. “I slowly realized the music was pretty good, again, which gave me a new sense of purpose, and the cycle starts again.”

Tame Impala also celebrated Lonerism‘s 10th anniversary last weekend by performing it in full at California’s Desert Daze festival.

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