Mac DeMarco announces new instrumental album, ‘Five Easy Hot Dogs’

Mac DeMarco has announced a new instrumental album called ‘Five Easy Hot Dogs’ – find all the details below.

The Canadian artist is due to release the 14-track project on January 20 (CD/digital) via his own Mac’s Record Label. A vinyl edition will follow on May 12 – you can pre-order/pre-save here.

• READ MORE: Mac DeMarco – ‘Here Comes The Cowboy’ review

Per a press release, the forthcoming project consists of instrumental recordings from DeMarco’s time out on the road. “The plan was to start driving north, and not go home to Los Angeles until I was done with a record,” he explained.

“Kind of like being on tour, except there weren’t any shows, and I’d just be burning money.”

Each song featured on ‘Five Easy Hot Dogs’ was recorded and mixed in the corresponding city named in its title. The tracklist reflects the chronological order in which the tunes were produced, beginning with ‘Gualala’ and ending with ‘Rockaway’.

“Some places I stayed longer in than others, some of them I knew from the past, others not so much,” DeMarco went on.

“I tried to keep things busy all the time. If I didn’t know what was up in a city, I’d just walk around till someone recognised me and go from there. I met a lot of interesting people this way, and had a bunch of cool experiences.”

DeMarco set out to stay in motels, hotels or people’s houses to record the album following a live show in the San Francisco Bay Area in January 2022.

“I had my guitars with me, a bass, a weird little drum kit with a kick drum we sawed in half in Golden Gate Park, all the stands and cabling I’d need, a couple of mics, an old model D, and a TX7,” he recalled.

“I wound up picking a bunch of stuff as I went as well, trying to keep it as travel friendly as possible though.”

DeMarco continued: “The nature of ripping around and recording and traveling in this manner doesn’t lend well to sitting around and planning or thinking about what it was that I was setting out to do. I didn’t ever have a sound in mind, or a theme or anything, I would just start recording.

“Luckily the collection of recordings from this period all shake hands, they have a present musical identity as a whole. I was in it while I was in it, and this is what came out of it, just the way it was.”
He added: “This record sounds like what rolling around like that feels like. I hope you enjoy.”

See the official cover artwork and full tracklist for ‘Five Easy Hot Dogs’ here:

1. ‘Gualala’
2. ‘Gualala 2’
3. ‘Crescent City’
4. ‘Portland’
5. ‘Portland 2’
6. ‘Victoria’
7. ‘Vancouver’
8. ‘Vancouver 2’
9. ‘Vancouver 3’
10. ‘Edmonton’
11. ‘Edmonton 2’
12. ‘Chicago 1’
13. ‘Chicago 2’
14. ‘Rockaway’

DeMarco’s fourth and most recent studio album, ‘Here Comes the Cowboy’, came out back in 2019.

Last April, the singer-songwriter told NME that he was working on a “so called record” while focussing on “living a happy life”. He said he was in New York at the time, but explained that he’d be visiting other places.

The post Mac DeMarco announces new instrumental album, ‘Five Easy Hot Dogs’ appeared first on NME.