6/13/2023 0 Comments Give it to me lyrics homeshake(“Feeling so out of touch/Staying inside too much” Sagar sings on ‘Every Single Thing’.) That skew towards the personal is what makes this album such a good listen. Even then, this is less lounge music than it is the interior monologue of someone holed up in their apartment. Libidinal and down-tempo, Sagar bounces easily between wispy crooning and sharp falsetto. “Not U” and “Timing”, where Sagar crosses the influences, bringing R&B grove together with arresting melody lines, are two high-points of the album. Scenes, moods, and, moments that are often rather banal are given a whole new sensuous experience.įresh Air wears its influences on its sleeve: Sade, Prince, Broadcast, and Angelo Badalamenti (best known for scoring ‘Twin Peaks’) have all been mentioned. II (He’s Cooling Down)’ starts with a vibrating phone (is it on the table? Inside the couch?) before Sagar details a call: “Open up my phone/Hello/A Voice I haven’t heard/In a little while.” Although they often get drowned out, Sagar’s lyrics (and their delivery) are worth listening to. In a spin on the old telephone love-song trope, ‘Getting Down Pt. ‘Every Single Thing’ opens with distant chatter: “Are you even paying attention to me right now?” a voice asks, before a lovesick Sagar opens up about distraction and obsession. Sagar plays with dreamy, mildly disorienting echoes and impressions of sound, all to great effect. Bits and pieces of sound on the album simulate the feeling of hearing something through a vent, trying to figure out a hum on a city street, a TV through a wall, an odd creek from a floorboard. The source of the sounds on this album always seems unclear. The sonic pallet on the album is striking, for one – bizarre interjections, experimental codas, samples, and even the catchiest synth lines are like auditory hallucinations patched together to create a world of their own. The jangly guitar that defines earlier Homeshake albums (as well as Mac’s sound) is less prominent on Fresh Air, but that doesn’t make the album’s slacker vibe any less disarming. The solo project of Peter Sagar (formerly a guitarist for Mac Demarco), Homeshake is atmospheric, groove-laden synth pop that works quickly and conspicuously to pull listeners into a trance. Fresh Air is never just relaxing – it’s always a little weird, a little sinister, even a little unsettling. Whereas Mac Demarco is the soundtrack to a lazy summer, Homeshake is like opening a window in a cosy bedroom on a crisp and sunny winter’s day: a welcome refreshment.Despite how smooth and sensual Homeshake’s music might be, there’s something slightly heavy about it. The record performs quite the balancing act between the warmth and intimacy of Sagar’s voice and lyrics, and the coolness of the samples, drums and synths. Those who liked his early work, however, will find the album to be a treasure chest of classic Homeshake, albeit with fresh sounds and more immediacy than before. Sometimes though, one is left wishing that Sagar had borrowed even more from the world of hip-hop and featured other artists: his singing voice is not for everyone, and so cuts like the title track can drag on if you are not a fan of his lazy falsetto. II” has the sprawl of a languid Dirty Projectors jam, and “So She”’s wonky see-saw guitar is underpinned by off-beat drums and bass. None are straightforward though: “Getting Down Pt. Surely there are few others in the world of indie-rock with the inventiveness and creativity that Homeshake displays.īut for all the apparent influence of hip-hop and R&B, there are still more guitar-led indie-rock tracks that intersperse the album. Everything has its right place, however, and as a cohesive whole the record begins to make sense, such as when the apparent meaningless track name “Khmlwugh” turns out to be an abbreviation for its chorus (“Kissin’, huggin’, makin’ love, waking up, getting high”, in case you were wondering). Seemingly nonsensical ideas crop up, such as the samples of a phone’s vibration which catches the listener off guard, or the sound of arctic winds in the background of a track. “Not U”’s synth line echoes P-funk, and the 808 drum patterns on “Wrapping Up” and “Timing” are ratcheted tight – almost as if they where produced by a trap artist. Sensual guitar and finger-snaps kick off the album with an R&B flavour to it, but this notion is subverted with subsequent songs. Indeed, the Homeshake project has a kind of mixtape vibe to it: funny little skits punctuate songs, and the music picks and chooses from a wealth of genres.
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