Homeshakalaka: Homeshake at Mohawk

Peter Sagar, aka Homeshake, brought his signature style of melancholic lo-fi pop to Mohawk last Friday. 

Crowded and vaguely tipsy, Sagar’s set consisted of his newest album, Helium, interspersed with the Fresh Air and In The Shower tracks which brought him renown. The crowd’s makeup was similar to that of his past shows in Austin—young men and women, teenagers, drawn to the echoes of Mac Demarco partnerships and low-key celebrity, chatted excitedly and blew plumes of fragrant pot smoke that drifted to my nose—the sights and smells reminded me, demographically, of the niche that Sagar’s thoughtful lovesick lyrics plays perfectly for: young, anxious people between 15 and 29, eager to relate and reminisce about love lost only a moment ago on their timeline.

Sagar’s set was curt. He engaged sparingly with his rambunctious audience. He responded to patriotic shouts of “Texas!” with equivalent sarcasm, muttering into the microphone “Oh, we’re in Texas?” Other than that, the only time that he spoke to the audience was to ask with his voice pitched up by vocal software “Is everybody okay?”, a question that was answered with a resounding affirmative.

Sagar played his hits, including “Give It To Me,” that punchy, range-showcasing, bass-shot, as well as “Every Single Thing” and “Call Me Up,” all crowd pleasers full of side-step jazz pudding pop, major key tunes with minor key lyrical content. I found his older work irresistible to sing along with. By the end of the show, the people around me were visibly annoyed and my vocal cords were a falsetto away from shredded. 

The tracks off of Helium were the slowest of the show. They didn’t beg for a chorus—they begged for thought. Where Fresh Air engaged and moved the Mohawk crowd, the tracks off of Helium lulled with their soft, crooning vocals. The change in pitch left me time for introspection. I was tucked in by tracks like “Other Than,” and “Like Mariah,” their mellow, pillow talking vocal performances accented the transitions to older, more accessible work. There were highs, lows, and lots of in between, but every song was tight and perfectly replicated—a perk that is owed to Sagar’s proclivity for laptop production. But all of this was not what the show was about. The power of music lies in its ability to force, in this case, gentle visions into the brain, to ease the imagined translations between said and done, dreamed and experienced.

Homeshake / Anne-Marie Halo

The show felt like the beginnings of a balmy dream. One second, I’d be entranced by the guitar or drums or in the throes of the fading pink-purple stage lights or moving in and out of consciousness, only to be throttled the next second by the rip of a key-change, a roar of appreciation, the sting of sweat mixed with shampoo in my eyes. The sensation was akin to those first visions of the night violently ended as the fall to the concrete or sink to the ocean floor ends. But unlike those dreams, there was no true beginning to the feelings and no jarring end to attach them to—the emotions simply passed, but the results were memorable. It was cathartic to snap awake at that point in time in Austin, Texas, at Mohawk, meters away from the orchestrator of such waves of pleasure and pointed thought. I felt alive.

My job is impressionistic. I’m supposed to translate the transient sensations of my experience and make them into a story about my night, the music, the sound–but since the encore performance of “Secret Track” ended with Sagar repeating over and over again, “Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep,” I have been searching for those details that comprised what the show really was; not the dewey adjectives on my forehead or the muggy aires coming from the audience, but a wisp of a semi-born thought, brought about by every single little detail: the familiar tapestry that Sagar’s equipment rested on and the way the ambulance sirens passing by on the street modulated perfectly into the songs and the sweet smell of Lone Star beer and the dangling silver earrings on the man next to me. Like the details of those first dreams we lose when we wake up, I have been searching through my unconscious, desperately trying to find the single thread that I need to place you, the reader, within my dream of Peter Sagar and his blinking drum kit, within my uncertain night, sandwiched between friends and strangers, musing about thankfulness and breathing once again. But I think now that a perfect description will be impossible, and that the only way for you to experience that feeling of remembrance is to see Mr. Sagar and hear the tones yourself.