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Peter Harder\u2019s first single, Fungus, was released on YouTube when he was in Grade 6.<\/p>\n
But Harder, who earlier this month released the independent five-song EP Lighthouse in the Water, certainly isn\u2019t dismissing his first single, Fungus, released to YouTube in Grade 6.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to write a song about something we hated, and I hated mushrooms, and I think I always will, unfortunately, so I wrote a song about that and then I went home and produced it,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd then I made a music video the same night and put it on YouTube, and then the whole class had to watch it. So that was the first time that I used it. It was on Garageband for iPod Touch.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always thought growing up that everybody on the radio produced and wrote their own music. I thought that was what you had to do, so that\u2019s what I was trying to do. And now I\u2019m so glad that I did that.\u201d<\/p>\n
From that digital toolkit \u2014 one Harder doesn\u2019t take for granted \u2014 the songwriter honed his approach to independent production, inspired by the music of Lana Del Ray and Lorde, particularly the latter, New Zealand-born pop star\u2019s song Ribs, released on 2013\u2019s Pure Heroine.<\/p>\n
Harder, whose prior releases include the 2018 EP As the Universe, 2020\u2019s eight-track collection Crystals, and 2023\u2019s Phosphene, continued to find inspiration in those artists on Lighthouse in the Water, which will be feted Saturday at Sidestage with opening sets by Scarlette Alexis of Solaire and Lana Winterhalt.<\/p>\n
The bedroom-pop songwriter says he used to observe from a bird\u2019s-eye position for his lyrical content, relying on the aerial vantage to contextualize himself within \u2014 and differentiate himself from \u2014 a comparative crowd. But on the more introspective Lighthouse, the messages were outward bound.<\/p>\n
The idea behind the project was \u201cto say things to my partner that I feel for him that maybe I have a harder time saying out loud,\u201d says the artist, who\u2019s also inspired by the music of U.S. singer-songwriter Ryan Beatty.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a song called White Teeth and every time I listen to it, I almost start to cry,\u201d Harder says, referring to a cut off Beatty\u2019s 2023 record, Calico.<\/p>\n
Lighthouse opener Disinhibition was written in hindsight, and Harder calls the track \u2014 which opens with the lyric, \u201cSorry to love you like I wouldn\u2019t wanna be loved\u201d \u2014 the hardest one to write and perform.<\/p>\n
\n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n
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Citrus \u2014 not a B-side to Fungus \u2014 is a song about attachment styles that takes lyrical inspiration from Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector\u2019s 1943 novel Near to the Wild Heart in its first lyric, \u201cA little citrus, a little lime in my ears, open the cut, tell me your fears.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lovely, stripped-back and sewn-up More of You seems set on a cohabitated desert island, a location that feels most directly aligned with the EP. \u201cI\u2019m dying just to see a fraction of your mind,\u201d Harder sings on the track, a bridge connecting two sides of shared territory.<\/p>\n
On Lighthouse in the Water, the Winnipeg singer gives more of his own mind, and listeners can hear the fulfilled promise, the surreal depth and the buoyant quality of Harder\u2019s crystal-clear voice as it lifts and falls through changing winds.<\/p>\n
winnipegfreepress.com\/benwaldman<\/p>\n
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Ben Waldman Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University\u2019s (now Toronto Metropolitan University\u2019s) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben<\/a>.<\/p>\n Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print \u2014 part of the Free Press\u2018s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press\u2019s history and mandate<\/a>, and learn how our newsroom operates<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Reporter
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