Another Mac Demarco

A listless album about being listless, Mac DeMarco’s new collection of instrumentals summons the bleary, exhausted feeling of time spent on the road. Bob Rafelson’s 1970 film Five Easy Pieces ends with the hero, played by Jack Nicholson, hitching a ride on a northbound truck and disappearing into anonymity. Mac DeMarco is too larger-than-life to ever be anonymous, but this scene is a good starting place for considering his new Five Easy Hot Dogs. Ever since he sang “What mom don’t know has taken its toll on me” on 2014’s Salad Days, he has been exploring a long post-adolescent hangover, the feeling of emerging on the other side of your young and carefree days and seeing little that looks exciting in your future. This thread came to a head on 2019’s Here Comes the Cowboy, a record whose burnt-out ballads were full of dead friends, departed lovers, and uncertain plans. Now here are 14 instrumentals made on a long and spontaneous solo road trip, where DeMarco pledged “not go home to Los Angeles until I was done with a record.” This is a listless album about being listless, and it’s a pretty accurate picture of the stretches of useless, money-burning time that come with being on the road.

Having endured his surprisingly quick ascendance to indie stardom, Mac DeMarco took the breakout success of 2014's Salad Days in stride and merely carried on with business, refining his trademark blend of wobbly, chilled-out soft rock with increasing quality on outings like 2015's lovelorn Another One and 2017's more introspective This Old Dog. The pranky slacker image that translated as DeMarco's public persona was certainly earned, but also served as a lazy subterfuge for a rather hardworking artist who records, produces, and plays all the instruments on what has turned out to be quite a lot of material.

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. This Old Dog makes for his fifth in just over half a decade - bringing the total to 3 LPs and 2 EPs. According to the DMV, MacBriare Samuel Lanyon DeMarco is 26. But in working-dog years, ol' Mac here could easily qualify for social security. To stay gold, turns out all he needed was some new tricks.’

Simon Okely is lost in time. Or at least, his songs sound that way: warm, near-whispered indie-rock love letters to the 60s and 70s rhythm and blues records his parents would play on family car rides down Australia's winding west coast, heavy on nostalgia and even heavier on imagination. "I try not to be too caught up in trends and what's popular in music now and just focus in on my passions, my influences," grins the Melbourne songwriter better known as Slow Dancer, whose 2014 debut Surrender was a melt-your-heart, Fleetwood Mac-with-Neil Young licks "pop postcard" from another time, another place.

Given Adam Naas’ voice and the stripped down visuals on this second album, you might have expected a load of stripped-back and post-soul gems, or perhaps even a disco revival. The Frenchman’s first EP appeared in the autumn of 2016, just months after Prince’s death difficult to believe that was mere coincidence. Two years later, his début album landed somewhere between glam, pop and soul, serving only to confirm this princely lineage. Today, however, Adam Naas shows that if there’s one thing he’s learned from the Kid of Minneapolis, it’s his taste for freedom and artistic independence. He’s defined in equal measure by his characteristic fluidity between genres and influences.

Eddie 9V has an endless stockpile of cool stories – and you’ll find twelve of them on new studio album Saratoga, released 22nd November 2024 on the fabled Ruf label. It’s a record that will thrill both newcomers and fans who have trailed Eddie since the start, showcasing his fresh, fiery spin on Southern soul, blues, rock and funk, with his signature wit and sharp observations of modern America placing him squarely in the here-and-now. “I do think it’s a wonderful road trip album,” he nods.

Channel Tres has unveiled details of his new album, 'Head Rush'. Set to land on 28th June via RCA Records, you can listen to the new single, 'Cactus Water', below.

Channel Tres has unveiled details of his new album, 'Head Rush'. Set to land on 28th June via RCA Records, you can listen to the new single, 'Cactus Water', below.

Sinedín Music Presents Rockdelux Momentos 2017 Canciones Nacionales Vol 1 album 14 original hits and the original artists. Includes tracks by St. Vincent, Moses Sumney, Dirty Projectors, Jens Lekman, Father John Misty and more.