MAC DEMARCO THIS OLD DOG SPOTIFY MAC
This Old Dog is an extremely personal record and quite clearly Mac DeMarco is trying to move forward from the slacker, happy-go-lucky, goofball vibes which he’s unfortunately been tarnished with. It sounds as if its bobbing with its head above water, rather than surfing or diving from a height as you’d get from Salad Days, and he mournfully repeats the line “Everybody dies…” while a Mogwai-esque crescendo begins to creep into the mix without fully exploding. ‘Moonlight On The River’, the nearest we get to Classic Big Mac with its pitch shifting underwater guitars (“Sounds like SpongeBob” I once heard someone describe his ‘sound’). It sounds glorious and achingly like the sequel to ‘Just to Put her Down’, as he sings during the chorus: “Honey, I cry too, you better believe it”. ‘Still Beating’ contains a killer soft-rock guitar melody which reappears throughout.
I’m Italian, so I guess this is an Italian rock record”. This is my acoustic album, but it’s not really an acoustic album at all. “I think what I was trying to do is make Harvest with synthesizers” is his explanation, “but I don’t think I even came close to the mark - something else entirely came out. “Hey man, so now you’ve got it off your chest / Your heart can finally get some rest / Same heart that started this whole mess”, he relates whilst evoking the spirit of Neil Young. A song where Mac DeMarco offers support to a friend going through a break up. Which leads us nicely into the next track, entitled ‘One Another’. It also could be a distant relation to ‘Another One’ from his previous release. ‘Baby You’re Out’ shuffles along whimsically like mid-to-late-’90s Beck, while ‘For the First Time’ follows in the same thread as his classic hit and Tyler, The Creator favourite ‘Chamber of Reflection’ (if it was slowed down about 50bpm) and sprinkled with synths which could be from ‘Dolce Vita’ by Ryan Paris (if it was sped up about 50bpm).
Take title track ‘This Old Dog’, where an acoustic guitar is twinned with tinges of pedal steel sounding synths, which sound like shafts of sunshine seeping through the blinds. So this is a new endeavour for me.”Īnd the new songs do resemble demo recordings made during the wee hours. The majority of this album is acoustic guitar, synthesizer, some drum machine, and one song is electric guitar. I usually demo on a drum machine and then record real drums, but I liked that machine so much I kept it on the album. “It’s on the album a lot, maybe four or five songs. “That thing helped a ton, especially for demoing,” Mac reveals in the press release. It’s a starkly revealing and honest opening and sets the tone with a bare and exposed delivery, which is underlined with a CR-78 drum machine loop which features throughout. (Any evidence needed, just check out this video of the father-son relationship.) Mac DeMarco has previously described his father, who checked out early from Mac’s life and seldom saw him while growing up as alcohol and addictions took control, as “one of those ‘Christmas Dads’ who just pops in on the holidays”.
Opening track ‘My Old Man’ reflects on the similarities he’s seeing with his estranged father as he opens up, singing: “Oh no, looks like I’m seein’ more of my old man in me”. The stripped back, ‘less is more’ approach of This Old Dog is evidently on display straight off the bat. Whereas his previous offering Another One was his ’70s adult contemporary release, this one seems to be his world weary, sombre, comedown record, as well as a solid display of his knack for concise, memorable and melodic songwriting. This Old Dog follows neatly in this continuing odyssey, where ol’ Mac is beginning to reflect and it feels as though he’s hit that proverbial quarter-life crisis.
However, take into account the repertoire already under his belt over the past five years and it’s a body of work which most artists would kill for, from the lo-fi 2 to the adolescent Salad Days and the mature Another One. You may think it ridiculous that McBriare Samuel Lanyon “Mac” DeMarco (Vernor Winfield McBriare Smith IV to his mother and Mac Demarco if you’re searching on Spotify) be considered an old dog by any stretch of the imagination, especially with just 27 years on the clock-o-meter.