HOMESHAKE, the musical project of Peter Sagar, is an expression of adjustment and contortion within the world as he experiences it and the sounds he wants to hear in it. Hallucinatory and heartbreaking in its cries for connection, Sagar’s sound is often imitated but has proven to be entirely his own; textural and profound, uniquely honoring his diverse influences but adrift within its own transportive imagination.

Sagar left his hometown of Edmonton in 2012 seeking a fresh start from the scattered projects of his youth and desiring to open himself back up to the jazz music he was raised on. He folded these childhood influences into the experimental indie rock he had become infatuated with and began the project in his new home of Montreal.

Following March’s CD Wallet, Homeshake presents his second album of 2024, Horsie. Written and recorded at his home studio in Toronto, it explores Sagar’s complicated feelings about returning to live performance. Deepening his relationship to loneliness and anxiety, the record examines those themes in the context of touring.  

While it marks less of a sonic departure than CD Wallet, Horsie employs various textures influenced by artists like Four Tet and My Bloody Valentine, the rhythmic forms of D’Angelo and Sade, and moments of ambient Americana found in the works of Ry Cooder. The cornerstone pieces of gear used were an Ensoniq EPS and Roland Juno 60, though the album also employs a great deal of electric guitar, along with his beloved SP-404. He maintains a philosophy of “less is more,” finding the simplest route from one point to another.  

Unavailable on streaming, the tape has become a cult favorite. Its sound was expanded and refined in his debut LP In The Shower, a sensual disc made up of tracks about the love of his life, Salina Ladha, and their cat’s tragically short life.

Homeshake’s second album, Midnight Snack, began a shift in compositional focus from guitar to synthesizer. Looking for new temperatures and tones, Sagar employed pads and drum machines in place of the more traditional rock instrumentation of his previous work. His next album Fresh Air sharpened the direction into a poppier sound, creating some of his most beloved work. Sagar approaches every album with the same frame of mind, composing purely for the joy of the moment without consideration to potential commercial reception.  

His fourth album, Helium, is his first album fully recorded in a home studio setting. Despite its impetus being Sagar wanting to be released from his record contract, it features his most optimistic sound. Shortly after its release, Sagar fell into an extended depressive episode, the longest period of time away from writing and recording in his adult life.  This experience became Under The Weather, his most introspective work to this point. A raw diaristic experience of isolation, depression and anxiety, the work connects his ailments at that time to the work he would soon explore on CD Wallet: the childhood origins of his loneliness.

A trip through the Homeshake catalogue is one of evolution, reflection, and self-criticism, alongside self-love, a clear-eyed realism about the cruelties of the world and a longing for the gentler place it could be.

HOMESHAKE, the musical project of Peter Sagar, is an expression of adjustment and contortion within the world as he experiences it and the sounds he wants to hear in it. Hallucinatory and heartbreaking in its cries for connection, Sagar’s sound is often imitated but has proven to be entirely his own; textural and profound, uniquely honoring his diverse influences but adrift within its own transportive imagination.

Sagar left his hometown of Edmonton in 2012 seeking a fresh start from the scattered projects of his youth and desiring to open himself back up to the jazz music he was raised on. He folded these childhood influences into the experimental indie rock he had become infatuated with and began the project in his new home of Montreal.

Following March’s CD Wallet, Homeshake presents his second album of 2024, Horsie. Written and recorded at his home studio in Toronto, it explores Sagar’s complicated feelings about returning to live performance. Deepening his relationship to loneliness and anxiety, the record examines those themes in the context of touring.  

While it marks less of a sonic departure than CD Wallet, Horsie employs various textures influenced by artists like Four Tet and My Bloody Valentine, the rhythmic forms of D’Angelo and Sade, and moments of ambient Americana found in the works of Ry Cooder. The cornerstone pieces of gear used were an Ensoniq EPS and Roland Juno 60, though the album also employs a great deal of electric guitar, along with his beloved SP-404. He maintains a philosophy of “less is more,” finding the simplest route from one point to another.  

Unavailable on streaming, the tape has become a cult favorite. Its sound was expanded and refined in his debut LP In The Shower, a sensual disc made up of tracks about the love of his life, Salina Ladha, and their cat’s tragically short life.

Homeshake’s second album, Midnight Snack, began a shift in compositional focus from guitar to synthesizer. Looking for new temperatures and tones, Sagar employed pads and drum machines in place of the more traditional rock instrumentation of his previous work. His next album Fresh Air sharpened the direction into a poppier sound, creating some of his most beloved work. Sagar approaches every album with the same frame of mind, composing purely for the joy of the moment without consideration to potential commercial reception.  

His fourth album, Helium, is his first album fully recorded in a home studio setting. Despite its impetus being Sagar wanting to be released from his record contract, it features his most optimistic sound. Shortly after its release, Sagar fell into an extended depressive episode, the longest period of time away from writing and recording in his adult life.  This experience became Under The Weather, his most introspective work to this point. A raw diaristic experience of isolation, depression and anxiety, the work connects his ailments at that time to the work he would soon explore on CD Wallet: the childhood origins of his loneliness.

A trip through the Homeshake catalogue is one of evolution, reflection, and self-criticism, alongside self-love, a clear-eyed realism about the cruelties of the world and a longing for the gentler place it could be.