Mac DeMarco 的好友兼前任巡演吉他手 Homeshake，除了在 2013 年跟 Mac DeMarco 一同來台演出，去年更在 the wall 辦了專場與 Angel Baby 以及落日飛車鼓手尊龍合作共演，帶給觀眾一晚浪漫的微醺之夜。
而 Homeshake 新專輯《Under the Weather》也邀請到同樣身為他好友的 Lucas Nathan，也就是古靈精怪的 Jerry Paper 來進行混音製作。保持著讓人感到舒服的 lo-fi 質感，Homeshake 的音樂從古怪的合成器音效和回聲，到慵懶甚至近乎細微的聲線，彷彿貼著旋律偶爾喃喃自語的哼唱一般，像在細繩上擺盪，接近飄起的搖搖欲墜，同時擁有廣闊而扭曲的空間。
在製作《Under the Weather》時的 2019 年，Homeshake 正受到憂鬱症的影響，疫情尚未爆發就已足不出戶一段時間，聆聽這張專輯就像閱讀 Homeshake 釋放壓力的日記，朦朧而有些喜怒無常，節奏慢得像糖漿，旋律籠罩著一層霧氣。像是〈Feel Better〉描寫了當外面的天氣嚴峻時試圖振作自己，最後一首歌〈Tenterhooks〉則記錄了他終於在絕望的深淵中解脫。
可能因為憂鬱使然，Homeshake 在這張專輯當中所寫的關於孤立、孤獨和沮喪顯得特別深入人心，他也在訪談中說到，他單純想創作出能誠實表達自身感受的音樂，或許《Under the Weather》會是一張最貼近 Homeshake 內心的作品。
Unlike most of us, Peter Sagar — also known as HOMESHAKE — was staying at home a lot, long before the pandemic. Sagar wrote the majority of his fifth studio album, Under the Weather, in 2019, when he was going through a long, unrelenting period of sadness. “I was in a deep, deep depression,” he recalls of that time period now. “Tours were breaking me. It was awful.” Sagar and his partner were living in Montreal and while everyone was out being social, he was inside listening to ambient music, binging Star Trek, and writing songs. (Sound familiar?) “It was a bit of a dark pit,” he says. “Thats kind of what the whole album is about.”
Under the Weather follows Sagar life and the depression that consumed him in 2019 — after a brief album intro, it jumps right into “Feel Better,” a reflection on attempting to buck up when the weather outside is grim. The album is hazy and moody, the pace slow as syrup, and from beginning to end, a fog falls over every synth and guitar line. In “Inaminit,” Sagar cancels plans when he feeling low; the closing track, “Tenterhooks,” sees Sagar deliverance into the depths of despair: “Feel myself drying up / feel myself turn into dust,” he sings over a funhouse mirror synth. “Oftentimes when youre in a dark place, youre supposed to journal and that helps release the pressure,” Sagar says. “For me, it always found its way into the music.”
Capturing the cloudy sound of a depressive funk was no simple feat, especially in the headspace Sagar was in for over a year. For that reason, he decided to enlist his friend, Jerry Paper Lucas Nathan, to help with production on the record. Having Nathan contribute helped Sagar dial back some of “dry, pristine digital sound” that defined his fourth studio album, Helium, and add back personal analog touches that drew people to the HOMESHAKE project in the first place.
“I didnt realize how much I missed having a second set of ears. Its pretty invaluable,” Sagar says. He would send all the of tracks back and forth with Nathan over the course of 2019, which made the process a longer one than he was used to. “There are a lot of things that I probably wouldnt have done that Lucas did do. I would tend to do a lot of softening of things, a lot of making everything super bassy and gentle. Lucas was aware that sometimes you needed some punch and grit.” To Sagar, those additions made the record what it is — a melodic, honest look at personal emotional struggle.
As Sagar readies it for release this September, the record he wrote about feeling isolated, alone, and despondent has begun to seem eerily prescient. “People will probably think that I made Under the Weather during or about Covid,” Sagar reflects now. “I was just already living my life that way.” For Sagar, the feelings he experienced over the course of that year are far from over — “Ive been writing about feeling isolated my whole life,” he says — but with age, he has come to understand them better. “I had a fairly clear idea what the album was going to be like based on where I was emotionally at the time,” he says about Under the Weather. “I just try to make music that is honest about how Im feeling.”
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