Mac DeMarco’s career strategy is an admirable one: Make a handful of straightforward indie rock records, become one of your generation’s most beloved musicians, then do whatever the hell you want. DeMarco’s popularity could easily warrant a major-label deal and recording time in souped-up studios, but he’s still out here recording at his house and in hotel rooms and releasing those songs on the label he started himself. When you have that much autonomy over the music you’re releasing, you also have a lot of room to get creative in promoting it.
For example, it appears that Mac DeMarco is putting out a new album called Dog On The Rock, his second new LP of the year. But we haven’t received any press releases for it. Instead, on his current European tour, he’s evidently been handing out CD-Rs of the album to fans; one fawning Redditor said they acquired a copy that had been taped to the barricade at DeMarco’s recent Dublin show.
DeMarco briefly discussed the new project last month it in an interview from Paris’ Arte Concert Festival — at the time, he was referring to it as “Mac’s Secret Album.” “I actually do have some a bunch of recordings that I made in between these two tours, and I went to the print shop to make little album sleeves of that yesterday,” DeMarco said. “So maybe there will be another secret album, but one that you can hear this time.”
And, lo and behold, you can hear it. Fans have now uploaded the no-longer-secret Dog On The Rock to YouTube. It’s about 40 minutes of untitled tracks that my boss Scott has described as “demo-quality, guitar and nonsense vocalizations, but pretty pleasant,” which is an appropriate description. The Mac’s Record Label Instagram account shared a snippet of the music on their stories today, too, so it seems like they’re OK with these tunes being out in the world. Check it out below.
DeMarco’s European tour is over, but he’ll back on the road soon, so you can try to nab one outside Canadian venues next month:
12/02 – Halifax, NS @ Light House
12/03 – Halifax, NS @ Light House
12/04 – Moncton, NB @ Tide & Boar
12/06 – Québec City, QC @ Palais Montcalm
12/07 – Montreal, QC @ MTelus
12/08 – Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall
12/09 – Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall
12/12 – Winnipeg, MB @ Burton Cummings Theatre
12/13 – Winnipeg, MB @ Burton Cummings Theatre
12/15 – Saskatoon, SK @ TCU Place
12/16 – Edmonton, AB @ Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium
12/17 – Calgary, AB @ Mac Hall
12/19 – Victoria, BC @ Royal Theatre
