Another One
An eight-song refresher after 2014’s *Salad Days*, *Another One* finds the preternaturally chilled-out Canadian singer/songwriter doing what he does best: sweet, saucer-eyed folk-rock in the vein of Ween or the Beatles, made by someone who sounds like they’re still waking up. A domestic at heart, DeMarco recorded the EP at home in Far Rockaway, Queens—the album-closing “My House by the Water” starts with the sound of the beach and ends with him giving out his address and inviting folks over for coffee.
In 2015, the talent for creating a prolific output of exceptional music is almost a curse. Press people will tell you that there’s a bottleneck of too many artists covered by too few media outlets who always want to talk about something new. Managers will tell you that there’s too much money to be made on the road, so the album cycle goes on and on to support that. Artists may even feel pressured by reviewers and themselves to go into a deep stasis, only to emerge again when they’ve reinvented themselves into a newly revamped and retooled model, as opposed to just capturing time in a bottle and offering more to their catalog. At times, even fans have adopted this rule as well and are almost shocked when their favorite artist is able to release an LP already after two and a half or three years of waiting (let’s call this the MBV-effect). Lucky for us, Mac DeMarco is old school in his approach: when Mac wants to make a record and he has the songs ready, he makes it. Like the days of Steely Dan, Harry Nilsson or Prince releasing a classic every year (or less) comes Mac DeMarco’s Another One, a Mini-LP announced almost one year to the date of the meteorically successful Salad Days. The album was conceived and recorded entirely by Mac in a short period of time between a relentless tour schedule. At his new place in Far Rockaway, Queens — a neighborhood as east as you can possibly be before hitting Long Island — you can live in relative isolation despite technically still being in New York City. This left Mac with nothing more to do with his down time than to make music. Another One is an eight track release of brand new songs, freshly written for this release and each of which expand the arsenal of Mac’s already impressive catalog. Centered around a pump-organ riff and lilting vocal melody that is somehow both haunting and warm, “A Heart Like Hers” is a track that shows the maturity of Mac’s progression as songwriter. It’s a little bit more refined, a little bit more sophisticated, but nonetheless still retains the guts and soul of any classic Mac track. Opener “The Way You’d Love Her” has a playful swing to the chords and a guitar solo that wouldn’t be out of place on a mid-period ‘Dead’ LP, Mac’s new favored listening past time. The overall feeling of the LP is lost love, or perhaps love never found, a topic that the world never tires of and one Mac can move through without it being a dour and somber experience. Title track “Another One” and stand out “Without Me” exhibit this bittersweet sensibility in lyrical and musical context, both melancholic and romantic, blurring the line between happy or sad nostalgia. The record leaves you with the same satisfaction as an old Bogart movie: he’s still the hero, but he doesn’t quite get the girl. It’s odd that despite working at the same pace as artists like Creedence, The Byrds and The Rolling Stones, coupled with an equally unending schedule of touring, press and recording, Mac is still labeled as a slacker. With two full-lengths and two EPs released and hundreds of sold out shows performed in the last several years, a recent late night television debut on Conan following a special guest performance on The Eric Andre Show, it seems, as Mac DeMarco nears his 25th birthday, there’s not a slack bone in the man’s body, besides maybe his a penchant for wearing comfortable clothes. You need comfortable clothes to work this hard anyway. Great singer/songwriters (Elton, Joni, Neil) don’t need to reinvent themselves; they just need to keep going and let the songs out in the world. If you’re like me and don’t think it’s been too soon since Salad Days – and you’re actually about to freak if you don’t hear more — here’s Another One.
Mac DeMarco is an unusually sensitive songwriter, capable of ferreting out what someone else might be feeling even as he’s absorbed in his own perspective. His new mini-LP, which features some of his prettiest material to date, is like a novella, or a made-for-TV movie—something to chew on while we wait for the next major project.
In the musical world of Mac DeMarco, nothing is ever quite as it seems. His music exists in a sort of hyper-relaxed, escapist milieu, but lyrically he’s weighed down by an emotional anchor. This juxtaposition has served the idiosyncratic DeMarco well on past efforts, never more so than on 2014’s excellent Salad Days.…
The man whose class-clown antics have garnered just as much attention as his critically acclaimed recordings shows us his sensitive side with his newest release.
It’s a relief to find DeMarco peering out the other side of fame, but he’s not fully testing himself.
In a not-so-secret message at the end of his 2015 mini-album Another One, Mac DeMarco offers up his home address in Far Rockaway, New York, inviting listeners to "Stop on by, I'll make you a cup of coffee."
At the end of Mac DeMarco's latest studio album, the aptly titled mini-effort Another One, the gap-toothed, Canadian rock'n'roll ex-pat list...
The independent music world can at times seem like a snobbish, closed-off community, dangerously close to drowning in its own pretension. It is increasingly important, then, that it have a few jesters to stir up the status quo.
Mac DeMarco's second LP since last year's widely acclaimed 'Salad Days' is also his most compulsively listenable album since '2'.
Mac DeMarco’s laid-back tunes combine simple arrangements with an appealing creepiness
Another One is a snapshot of an artist who’s found his lane and continues to mine it for affecting, melodically spry material.
Review of Mac DeMarco's forthcoming release 'Another One', the album comes out on August 7th via Captured Tracks. The lead single is "The Way You Love Her".
Mac DeMarco’s followup to Salad Days is small in its ambition, but still beautifully formed