HOMESHAKE

Montreal-based singer/songwriter Peter Sagar produces lonely, R&B-inflected indie pop as Homeshake. Although the endeavor remains essentially a one-person operation, it has drawn additional input from Mark Goetz, Greg Napier, and Brad Loughead. The material stays spare and sensual, drawing from smooth soul and R&B while maintaining a lo-fi, home-recorded character. The project’s first full-length statement arrived in 2014 as the guitar-centered In the Shower. Later releases shifted direction: Helium in 2019 leaned further into electronics and studio exploration, whereas Under the Weather in 2021 restored some of the analog warmth found in Sagar’s initial recordings. The 2024 album CD Wallet returned to a guitar-driven sound reminiscent of shoegaze and slowcore, only to be followed months later by the lighter, more synthesized Horsie.

Sagar first began committing Homeshake tracks to tape and sharing them online in 2012; Fixture Records issued his initial cassette, The Homeshake Tape, at the start of 2013. Much of that year was spent on the road playing guitar for Mac DeMarco while continuing to develop new songs. In October 2013, Bad Actors Inc. put out the short mixtape Dynamic Meditation, whose A-side contained a ten-minute medley of fresh material and whose B-side presented the same medley in reverse. Recorded at Montreal’s Drones Club, the debut album In the Shower appeared on Sinderlyn in 2014. Sagar revisited the same studio for the follow-up Midnight Snack, a more electronic set released in 2015, and continued that trajectory with Fresh Air in 2017.

Homeshake’s fourth album, Helium, emerged in 2019 after being tracked entirely inside Sagar’s Montreal apartment and was introduced by the lead track “Like Mariah.” The fifth album, Under the Weather, arrived in 2021; mixed by Lucas Nathan (Jerry Paper), its songs examined Sagar’s depression and exhaustion from nonstop touring. In 2022 the 126-track, eight-volume instrumental collection Pareidolia Catalog documented brief pieces composed during the COVID-19 lockdown. CD Wallet, issued in 2024, marked a return to more direct indie-rock arrangements and drew on Sagar’s recollections of his Edmonton upbringing and attendant nostalgia. Just a few months afterward he released Horsie, an album that confronts his conflicted emotions about resuming live performance.