Archie Sagers: Dreaming in Reverse on the Shores of Memory

In the cracks between DIY tape hiss and shoegaze shimmer, Archie Sagers has quietly become one of the most vital creative forces in Brighton’s independent music community. Whether he’s designing cassette covers, mastering tracks for fellow artists, or running his not-for-profit label Crafting Room Recordings, Sagers’ fingerprints are everywhere — thoughtful, deliberate, and deeply human.

Now, after years of quiet build-up, Sagers announces his most personal work yet. Dreams Along The Shore, due 12th September, is a meditation on memory and change, told through the lens of Cornwall’s beaches — particularly those around Newquay, where summers spent surfing, picnicking, and wandering with family and friends have taken on mythic weight. His latest single, “Tolcarne”, is a glittering example — marrying field recordings, dream-pop textures, and shoegaze guitar swells into something nostalgic and immediate, intimate and expansive.

We caught up with Archie to talk about life’s impermanence, crafting beauty through DIY ethics, and why the beach never really leaves you.

Your new album Dreams Along The Shore is rooted in memory and place — how did the beaches of Cornwall shape not just this record, but your wider creative identity?

My earliest creative memory is back on Crantock beach. I used to make elaborate sand sculptures with (a lot of) help from my grandfather, who was an architect. That early encouragement — creativity as play — stayed with me.

Pretty much all my creative work references Cornwall in some way. The cover of my first album was a photo of the New Year lights at Mousehole; most of the singles from that era were taken in and around Newquay. Growing up, Cornwall always felt like a retreat from the everyday — a place to reset, learn, explore.

This new album takes the listener on a journey across those beaches. The second half of the tracklist is named after Newquay's coastline, and the songs use field recordings and lyrics to bring those memories to life. Tolcarne is the second stop on that journey, and I’m so excited to finally share it.

‘Tolcarne’ captures both nostalgia and acceptance — how do you navigate that emotional tightrope between longing for the past and embracing what’s changed?

The first few lines borrow from William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence, which contrasts innocence and experience — I felt it mirrored what I wanted to say. I reworked it into something personal, then moved into the idea of appreciating fleeting beauty: “For a time on Tolcarne beach, the stars will shine, just for the eve.”

The beach is a perfect metaphor — a constant in nature that hosts endless human change. Families come and go, friendships shift, memories build. The beach is the same, but we’re not. I feel both a longing for those early days, and a joy in returning now with new people. That’s the emotional balance the song tries to hold.

The video for Tolcarne traces everything from your personal history to human evolution — how do you see your music fitting into that bigger picture of time and impermanence?

I borrowed a mini disc camcorder from Spencer (from ladylike) and filmed everything I could for three weeks — mundane things, beautiful things. I had this half-delusional vision of a Terrence Malick meets Stan Brakhage experimental montage, and it became the backbone of the video.

Editing three weeks of life into a single minute is surreal. It makes you confront how quickly things pass. Releasing art can feel the same — like throwing something into the void and hoping it lands. I see albums as snapshots of a moment. Happy New Year was made in lockdown, filled with nervous excitement and early-twenties anxiety. My next EP came right after my first year at uni — there’s a song I wrote the day before I met my now-partner of five years.

Looking back, I sometimes cringe, but I also admire how fully committed I was in those moments. I couldn’t make that music now — and that’s the beauty of it. Each track preserves the time it was born in.

Crafting Room Recordings has become a vital part of Brighton’s DIY scene. How does running a label feed back into your own songwriting and artistic process?

Running a label gives me perspective — you see the whole life cycle of a release, not just the creative part. Crafting Room was always about helping musicians release music on their own terms. Balancing that with my own projects is tough — spreadsheets, release deadlines, promo. I wish songwriting could be planned like that, but it can’t. It’s messy and spontaneous. I’ll usually start with a riff or a chord progression, then pull from my book of poems — or sometimes creatively borrow from poets like Blake or Mary Oliver.

From there, I build demos slowly, layering parts in Logic, refining as I go. Some tracks come together in hours, like Tolcarne — and those tend to be the best ones.

You draw on a rich mix of influences — from Steve Reich to shoegaze and post-punk — what’s your process for blending those textures while keeping your sound personal and grounded?

Honestly, I just steal from artists I love — and don’t worry too much about whether it “fits.” Whether it’s Joy Division’s rhythm section, MBV guitar wash, or the clean melodic lines of Belle & Sebastian, it all gets filtered through my own lens.

The Bass VI has become a signature of sorts — I bought it because I loved Disintegration by The Cure. It underpins Tolcarne, which also features reverse-reverb guitars, soft piano, and thick Smashing Pumpkins-style distortion.

Working with Matt Gleeson on the production was a joy — we stayed up after an Osees gig and recorded these Reich-inspired piano textures. He mic’d up an old piano and had me improvise, then re-learn it backwards and a bar out of sync. The result was this fragile, intimate loop that pans around your ears.

That blend of minimalism and shoegaze — held together by a DIY sensibility — is what makes the sound feel personal, I think. We’re not chasing perfection. We’re chasing honesty.