Mac DeMarco
Guitar
MAC’S RECORD LABEL
There’s forever been a laid-back absurdity to that which Mac DeMarco does as a composer and a singer-musician, something slacker-like and, in his made-up term, “jizz-jazzy” about each of his weirdly reverb-heavy, view-askew albums—the dippy instrumental-leaning Five Easy Hot Dogs LP of 2023 included. But what if we didn’t look at (or listen to) DeMarco through a warped, fish-eyed lens and instead allowed his catchy, soft-rocking, sleepy pop songs geared toward good morals and deep commitment a narrower vision; something where we listened to Mac less like we were tuning into an R. Stevie Moore record, and more comparatively in tune with his contemporaries such as Kurt Vile, or influences such as Brian Wilson?
Far more intimately recorded than previous albums, Guitar is a simple, direct-addressing affair where DeMarco’s usual stories of aging turn to fear (“Terror” and lyrics such as “I am terrified of dying / That old gift we all receive”), where his small victories loom large (“Rooster” and lyrics such as “I don’t care / I’ll still rise up with the rooster”) and his humor and bluntness roam freely, often without DeMarco’s typically interfering brand of experimentation to soften the blow or obscure the beauty of his songwriting craft. From the spare, bittersweet blues of “Phantom” through to the hypnotic “Holy” and the genuinely moving “Home,” the joke is on DeMarco: playing it straight can be the best way in which to display your aching oddity.
