Mac DeMarco - This Old Dog [LP]

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: Mac DeMarco has spent the better part of his time thus far writing, recording, and releas- ing an album of his own music pretty much every calendar flip. 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, 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.

It was a little space—in time, location, and method—that inspired DeMarco while making the record. Moving from his isolated Queens home to a house in Los Angeles helped give the somewhat transient Canada-native a base, and a few more months on his calendar to create did their job as well. 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).

Right off the bat, from the pops and clicks of the CR-78 drum machine and acoustic strums on the album-opening “My Old Man,” the synth-drenched beauty of the second track, “This Old Dog,” it’s clear that DeMarco’s bag is filled with new tricks indeed. This Old Dog is rooted more in a synth-base than any of his previous releases, but he is careful not to let that tactic overshadow the other instruments and overall “unplugged” mood of the work: “This is my acoustic album, but it’s not really an acous- tic album at all. That’s just what it feels like, mostly,” says DeMarco.

Despite the changes considered during the creation of This Old Dog, Mac De- Marco’s mid-twenties masterpiece, it’s clear that the engine that motors him is in no danger of slowing down.