Last January, Mac DeMarco set off on a sonic adventure through the United States and into Canada, pledging to not return home to L.A. until he had recorded an album. The result, Five Easy Hot Dogs, arrived on Friday and marks the former indie it boy’s first album since 2019’s Here Comes The Cowboy. Mimicking DeMarco’s drive through the vast expanses of North America, Five Easy Hot Dogs feels like staring out the window of a long car ride.
Setting out from San Francisco, DeMarco drove north. His destinations dot the tracklist of Five Easy Hot Dogs like his road map, beginning in Gualala, CA and moving up through Crescent City, CA into Portland before crossing into Mac’s native Canada for stops in Victoria, Vancouver, and Edmonton. Along the way, the singer-songwriter set himself up in hotels or on friends’ and strangers’ couches with a mobile recording studio. If the vibe didn’t suit him and no songs came about, he simply packed up and moved on to the next town.
Related: Caroline Rose Announces New Album, ‘The Art Of Forgetting’ [Video]
“Maybe it’s the last couple of years, or maybe it’s my age now, but the idea of forgoing any sort of normalcy or comfort and making my entire life, for a segment of time, completely insane feels very inspiring to me,” DeMarco said of the album’s process.
That wanderlust seeps into the grooves of Five Easy Hot Dogs. It would make a better indie movie or great American novel than an album (the title is inspired by the acclaimed 1970 road trip movie Five Easy Pieces). As our protagonist sets off on his cross-continent mission, he pops into one town after the other, each with its own unique set of characters. It even includes a climactic night in a creepy cabin near Zion National Park (after the journey was rerouted as a drive from NYC to Salt Lake City) while the hero withdraws from nicotine. David Lynch would have a field day with that.
In the end, DeMarco returns home to L.A. feeling defeated that he fell short of his goal. As some woozy sentimental indie rock (possibly from an earlier Mac DeMarco album) plays, he realizes that the joy was in the journey, rather than the destination. Roll credits.
On Five Easy Hot Dogs, all we get are the destinations. We’re not along with Mac as he drives alongside the Pacific Ocean and crosses into the Pacific Northwest. We aren’t there when he’s walking around Anywhere, USA waiting for somebody to notice him so he has a place to sleep—and record—for the night. Instead, there’s just the listless instrumental recordings of a man who doesn’t know where he’s going, with songs that don’t have a clue either.
Stream the new Mac DeMarco album, Five Easy Hot Dogs, via the player below or on your preferred platform.
Mac DeMarco – Five Easy Hot Dogs
The post Mac DeMarco Releases Wandering Instrumental Album, ‘Five Easy Hot Dogs’ [Stream] appeared first on L4LM.
