Not many albums released this year better evoke the sepulchral mood of contemporary times than ‘Under The Weather’, the fifth studio album by Peter Sagar aka HOMESHAKE. A journal-like exploration of the Toronto musician’s struggle with his own mental health, ‘Under The Weather’ is a hazy reverie that expounds the dissociative, elliptical nature of living with and through depression.
Throughout the twelve tracks, HOMESHAKE unfurls the layers of melancholy through an emulsion of muted, ambient R&B and downtempo synthpop. Though recorded before the wrath of the pandemic was felt, the album’s hypnotic embrace of solitude parallels the effects of collective inertia we’ve all been experiencing in real-time.
Known for his inconspicuous, under-the-radar nature, HOMESHAKE shared why it was important he opened up his insular world to a trusted collaborator and confidante, the purging that comes with producing music as well as his thoughts on the “bedroom pop” scene he helped cultivate.
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My entry point into your world was your album, ‘Fresh Air’. It felt like the pivot point in your career – an intermediary between the early phase and current phase of HOMESHAKE.
For those first three LPs, I was actually recording in a studio that was based down the road; I was recording with friends of mine in Montreal when I was living there. So, it was a definitely a different setting than my new records. I miss a lot of things about that, like all the problems that arise from recording to tape and the joy of playing drums. I was just making a lot of records very quickly at the time.
I noticed there’s quite small gaps in between your projects…
Recording is my favourite thing to do, so I do it as often as possible.
‘Bedroom pop’ and ‘chill wave’ are genre classifiers that have been used to define your work over the years. What’s your view of the bedroom pop scene? Is it even a world you prescribe to yourself?
I guess the idea around bedroom pop is that they’re making music alone in their houses. That doesn’t sound very scene-inducing to me: it’s chilling at home all the time. I don’t refer to myself as any of those things. Not that it bothers me. There’s a tendency to categorise it in one way or another. Personally, I don’t feel attached to any of it but I just happen to make music on my own in my house.
Your fifth album ‘Under the Weather’ was released a few months back. Most of the album was finished in 2019 but the release was delayed by the pandemic. When did recording begin and how long did you take to complete it?
Some of the instrumentals came to be very soon after I finished writing the previous record. I find when I’m writing, I’ll be recording, then I’ll finish it but I’ll still be in work mode. So, there’s always a few ideas that come from the previous record that make it onto the next one. I sat down in the summer of 2019 and started working on it between tours for ‘Helium.’ We toured a lot that year, it was a lot of starting and stopping but despite that it occupied a lot of my thoughts, so I was working on it nonstop because I was always thinking about it.
Then we moved to Toronto and I recorded all the vocals pretty soon after we moved. Then it sat there for a little while and I worked on some other more low-key projects that were not really HOMESHAKE-related. Then as we were trying to release it, it became difficult. It was the first time I had been a free agent; I wasn’t under a contract at the time. We were trying to shop it around and everybody got COVID cold feet, so we ended up doing another deal with Sinderlyn (Records), which worked out great. A huge part of this record was having my dear friend Lucas, do the mixing. Lucas is the person behind Jerry Paper…
Because you usually self-record, was Lucas a second pair of ears for you?
An essential pair of ears! I had these rough mixes that I really liked but I knew it was a little flat. I had a lot of mixing regrets about the album before that, so I decided to have them place their stamp on it. Lucas’s ears are ears I trust and they did such a good job. I was so relieved and it was good practice to open up my creative process to somebody because I don’t do that very often.
How did the collaboration between you and Lucas enhance the sound design of ‘Under The Weather’? As airy and atmospheric as these songs are, there’s grit and heft within the production.
Sometimes I’ll get really fixated on a small detail needing to sound a certain way or needing to avoid a certain thing. Usually I’m trying to make something softer or gentler, but Lucas came in hearing the songs from the opposite perspective; as a listener, not as a composer. They were able give it more grit and punch in the moments that needed it. I think the drums probably sound four or five times better than they would if I had mixed it. Lucas’s studio also has some nice outboard gear which my studio does not have: recording gear, compressors, EQs etc. Honestly, the beauty of it was messaging back and forth with someone I consider a close friend. We don’t live nearby, we never have and it was just nice to be in the middle of a pandemic, chatting with my pal about project we’re working on together.
‘Under The Weather’ documents your journey with depression, weaving in and out of states of melancholy. I don’t want to sensationalise it but do you feel these states correlates with transformative art? And do you feel you gained catharsis, writing and recording during such an emotionally taxing time?
Oh definitely. I find I learn a lot more after I work on stuff like this, about how I was really feeling. When you’re feeling down like I was, nothing is certain, least of all your own feelings or your own sense of self. It’s after I work on things that I’ll be able to piece together where my mind was really at. Also, the act of expressing things is a universal act. If you talk about things or write things down, it relieves the pressure of it bouncing around in your brain, like a feedback loop of negativity. If you get it out in any form, it can only help.
This record was like a salve for me and many people, because so much of our time has been spent in isolation. How’s it been seeing a very intimate piece of work take on a very universal lease of life for listeners? Are you even aware of what they think?
It’s been really strange to release a record, regardless of the content and then not tour immediately after. So, I don’t really know what anybody thinks of it. I think it’s mostly positive. I’ve been meaning to do one of those Instagram story things where you ask questions but it’s not a super appealing thing for me to do. I’ve been meaning to do something like that because there’s a disconnect at the moment between myself and the listeners, because I couldn’t go on tour.
Normally, at a show you get to play the songs, hear the reaction and then most importantly, say hello to some people after the concert. It’s strange to not have that experience follow the record. But I think the shows might be better when we do eventually tour because people have had some time with these songs. When I release a record, I want to play most of it. So, it’ll be better when the tour comes around because it’ll feel like it’s worth it.
Let’s speak about the first single of this era, ‘Vacuum’. I remember listening to ‘Vacuum’ and I actually swelled with emotion because you captured the feeling of living through a void so evocatively.
The lyrics are about waking up in a panic in the middle of the night, which is why the track has a nocturnal feel. Like most of my songs, ‘Vacuum’ was an instrumental first. I’m generally more concerned with the instrumental aspect and also, I enjoy it a lot more. I would know the melodies as I was writing them, but I don’t get around to writing or recording the vocals until much later in the process. So, it was just a funky thing I wrote. Initially, I didn’t play the bassline very well and I was being lazy about it. Towards the end, when I was working with Lucas and we were mixing, I just had to redo it.
I played the bassline out again – picking it rather than thumbing it – and I recorded it in one take. I think it’s one of only a handful of songs on the record that I played in one take. Maybe that’s not an interesting detail to anybody but I was very proud of myself when I recorded it. It still isn’t perfect, rhythmically there’s a couple of lapses, but I like the idea of putting it down the first time.
Also, ‘Vacuum’ foregrounds your higher register and your falsetto is often the mainline vocal in your songs. You’re able to tap into that upper register – what a gift to have!
Thank you. I do love the falsetto, I think my falsetto sounds better than my regular register. I’ve always liked the higher register singers. As I got more into singing, I just naturally gravitated towards it. It’s what I want to be on top of the instrumentals I make. So, I just had to try my best to do it.
For you, which other tracks elucidated the everyday experience of living with depression?
‘Inaminit’ and ‘Careful’. They’re in the middle of the record and represent the base feeling. I don’t actually know why; I just knew that they were. ‘Inaminit’ is about discussing depression, particularly the social anxiety aspect of it. ‘Careful’ is literally a nightmare I had. There’s a lot of weird dream stuff, waking up in and out of dreamlike spaces. Also, the constant dialogue between yourself and your sad feelings were very evident on these two songs. When I was writing them, I knew that they were going to go in the middle and they were going to be next to each other.
Did you tinker with the sequencing a lot?
It was different, yes. I had one other song slated to be on the record. It’s quite funny, early on I was asking friends of mine – who I’d shared the record with once it was mixed – what they thought the single should be.
Did you get different feedback?
Everybody had a different answer! Except, they all said that ‘Mindless’ should be a single and I was absolutely certain that I didn’t want it to be. My friend Kyle was like, “I think this should be a single” and I was like “I’m cutting that one”, he was like “what the fuck man!” I had this other song that was pretty short, it wasn’t bad, just a little melodramatic. I found that by taking it out of the album, switching a couple things around, the album finally flowed properly. So, it got the axe and then everything really fell into place.
I thought ‘Passenger Seat’ was a very good single choice as well, tonally similar to ‘Vacuum’ but even more vividly languorous…
‘Passenger Seat’ was all Lucas. The other ones were decided by discussing it with my manager. She and the label were pushing hard for ‘Mindless’ to be a single but I was very uncomfortable with the idea of the only positive-feeling song being a single. It would have been a dishonest representation of the record and I felt really uncomfortable with that.
There’s like a deep appreciation for classic and contemporary R&B in your work and I like how forthcoming you are about those influences, like D’Angelo, leaving an imprint on you…
I’ve spent so much time in my life listening to ‘Voodoo’ by D’Angelo.
A classic! One of the most cited works in interviews I’ve conducted.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to it. There’s always something new to discover, it never stops giving. I’m a little bit obsessed with the way the guitars sound on it; they’re all so filtered, it’s like the guitar parts are secrets or something, they’re all panned off to one side and really quiet. I love that one. I love Mariah Carey, obviously.
Do you have a favourite Mariah album? I don’t think she gets enough credit for how rich her discography is. I struggle with this view that she’s just a balladeer.
Her last album was incredible.
I thought it was her strongest since ‘Emancipation’ and I’d put it up there with ‘Butterfly’.
Both are incredible records but ‘Emancipation’ for me is a favourite. It was very contemporary, but it didn’t roll with sonic trends at the time just for the sake of it. A fucking super good record.
What are you listening to now?
Well, I have a show on NTS that goes out every month. My last NTS show was very guitar-focused, but I try and change it up. I always leave it until the very end and then sometimes I miss them, but I really love it. It just feels so nice to share music with people. Like maybe you know that feeling…
I get so much joy from new artist discovery and nothing’s better than sharing those discoveries.
You know the feeling then. I just love it. I put a lot of energy into the show, be it in advance or last minute. It’s a great place to hear all the music that I love. There are new things inspiring me, that I’ve been listening to, like Pink Siifu and his record ‘GUMBO!’ That’s an experience. I’ve been loving the artist Cindy Lee, who released a record last year called ‘What’s Tonight To Eternity’. It may be my favourite thing I’ve ever heard. I love Tirzah, I’m a huge fan of hers. My last NTS show was very guitar-focused, but I try and change it up.
I wanted to touch on your twitter account; you’re quite off-the-cuff and playful on there. What is your view of the access we have to each other on social media and maintaining a measure of anonymity? How do you approach the online world?
I find I go in and out of it; sometimes I’m not participating at all, sometimes I feel like I should be more visible. It’s a pressure to be around. I resonate with this tweet I read a while ago: “People will give you a joke answer to a serious tweet and serious responses to joke tweets.” Someone had deep wisdom with that one, I can’t remember who said it or how they said it, but it can be a pretty bleak, horrible place.
When you look back retrospectively at your discography, which releases felt like turning points for you artistically?
I don’t think I have that feeling about any of them. I try not to think about stuff like that. They’re all just records that came out in a row that I made. I think that’s all that they are. It’s worked out fairly well, I have no complaints and I’m very lucky to be in a position where I can make a record about how bad my year was and people will listen to it. I do think my rise was pretty slow, it didn’t just happen.
Given you’re so prolific with your creations, are you already working on the next project?
I’ve had some really some strange feelings about that kind of thing recently. For a while, I was fairly certain this would be the last HOMESHAKE record but I let go of the sense of urgency with that kind of thinking, with the idea that it has to be one way or another. One thing we did with this record is that we set up my own label: if you look at the back of the vinyl, it’s SHHOAMKEE records with exclusive licence to Sinderlyn. So, I’ve got some ideas about doing a label project and I’ve managed to accumulate a lot of work since I finished this, that doesn’t really have anything to do with HOMESHAKE.
I think I’ve started piecing together a sound I’d like to go for on a more serious project. It turns out that I’ve been spending a lot of time sitting in my studio room here playing guitar and I’ve been really enjoying playing guitar without a goal in mind, just sitting and playing. I think some ideas are starting to come together from that. Normally this would be a good question and I’d have finished half a record by now but I just felt strange during the pandemic, it’s kind of disrupted my long-standing nonstop work policy. Sometime next year, I’ll probably start putting out whatever shit I’ve been working on.
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Words: Shahzaib Hussain
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