“That thing helped a ton, especially for demoing,” he says. He also attributes some of the delay to his exploration of new gear he’d purchased, specifically a CR-78 drum machine, which he used while writing and can be heard on his album tracks for the first time ever.
It was a different vibe.”ĭeMarco wrote some demos for This Old Dog on an acoustic guitar, an unusual yet eye-opening method for him. When that happens, you really get to know the songs. But this time, I wrote them and they sat. And it was weird, because usually I just write, record, and put it out no problem. But then I realized that moving to a new city and starting a new life takes time.
“I demoed a full album, and as I was moving to the West Coast I thought I’d get to finishing it quick. Arriving in California with a grip of demos he’d written in New York, he realized after a few months of setting up his new shop-complete with a few new toys-that the gap was giving him perspective (insert tooth joke here). Moving from his isolated Queens home to a house in Los Angeles helped give the somewhat transient Canada-native a broader base, and a few more months on his calendar to create did their job as well. Though used to and pretty happy with that annual grind, it was a little space-in time, location, and method-that inspired DeMarco while making the record. To stay gold, turns out all he needed was some new tricks.
But in working-dog years, ol’ Mac here could easily qualify for social security. According to the DMV, MacBriare Samuel Lanyon DeMarco is 26. The fresh meat you’re now feasting on, This Old Dog, makes for his fifth in just over half a decade-bringing the total to 3 LPs and 2 EPs. Because for all his affected nonchalance, Mac DeMarco has delivered a record that's very touching, and deeper than what we might have expected.Before you ancients out there turn your heads and scoff at the premise of a twenty-something rock-and-roll goofball calling himself an old-anything, consider this: said perpetrator, he who answers to the name Mac DeMarco, has spent the better part of his time thus far writing, recording, and releasing an album of his own music pretty much every calendar flip, and pretty much on his own. Maturity, without a doubt, and even more clearly, the desire to show that he is a serious songwriter. Above all, he brings out a more personal side of his character. More acoustic, and less electric than he has been, the Canadian plays with bossa-nova tempos (Dreams From Yesterday) and summery pop (A Wolf Who Wears Sheeps Clothes), choosing to foreground his keyboards over his guitars. In particular, his dead-eye sense of melody, which will have us humming in our next few thousand showers.
All the DeMarco hallmarks are there, to be sure. His mini-album Another One of 2015 already had about it some of the flavour of this 2017 vintage. Is it the approach of his 30th birthday (and that’s still three years off) that is making Mac DeMarco so melancholy? Not to suggest that the wonder boy of the American indy scene has lost any of his boyish humour, his off-beam stories, his radiant second-hand guitars and his joyful and rickety synths: just that the general tone of This Old Dog was marked by a certain detachment, or a somewhat pensive mood. See More Your browser does not support the audio element. Because for all his affected nonchalance, Mac DeMarco has delivered a record that's very touching, and deeper than what we might have expected.
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