It seems that just as independent musician Mac DeMarco was starting to make a name for himself via his odd but utterly charming indie-pop records like Salad Days and This Old Dog, he decided that he wanted to escape the lifestyle he saw himself heading towards. The Canadian musician was one of the largest names to come from recent ‘bedroom pop’, but over the last few years has nudged himself into a direction with much less pop appeal. His last record, Here Comes the Cowboy, was a major stylistic departure from what DeMarco was known for — fun, light, lo-fi psychedelic pop full of synthy goodness — leading to a misunderstood but still strong album of oddities. A slow and meandering record, Here Comes the Cowboy was more along the lines of soft rock than anything else. This left Five Easy Hot Dogs in a difficult position stylistically, posing the question of whether the record should attempt to return to DeMarco’s more pop-friendly sound or push him further into the abstract. Upon first listen, it doesn’t take long to learn that DeMarco’s intentions lean towards the latter.
Five Easy Hot Dogs is a collection of beautiful ambient instrumentals, recorded by DeMarco on a road trip around America. The record borrows half of its title from Five Easy Pieces, the New Hollywood Wave film by Bob Rafelson. That film sees Jack Nicholson’s character Bobby go on a road trip of his own and eventually witness the death of his father, so it seems a noteworthy mention seeing as this album was recorded on the road shortly after the passing of DeMarco’s father. Death has been a theme in DeMarco’s previous works, such as when This Old Dog closed with ‘Watching Him Fade Away’, but here it is only seen in context.
Each track, titled after the city or state it was produced in, is laid out here in chronological order. Together, they create a pleasant, easy–listening mix of bass–driven instrumentals that merge the more recent idea of ‘lo-fi beats to relax to’ with some of the soft rock influence that DeMarco has made himself known for since his first album, Rock and Roll Night Club, released in 2012.
DeMarco described his intentions for making Five Easy Hot Dogs as forcing himself to drive North and not allowing himself to return home until he finished a record, “kind of like being on tour, except there weren’t any shows, and I’d just be burning money”. However, he stopped once arriving in Utah and finding himself alone in a large cabin “with a bunch of taxidermy animals all over the place”.
That may sound quite dark, but the sound of the album is light and embracing. Tracks such as the two recorded in Edmonton (simply titled ‘Edmonton’ and ‘Edmonton 2’) are standouts thanks to their blissful and gentle nature, as is ‘Vancouver’. DeMarco’s music remains in a genre difficult to describe — it is best labelled here as ambient folk — or is in one all of its own, but there is an intense charm to his sound thanks to its relaxing nature. DeMarco’s lo-fi style is also kept intact from his earlier work, giving an additional layer of charm to the music. This can be seen in smaller moments, such as the end of each track when the time between the end of the song and DeMarco stopping the recording is left in. The coughs and scraping chair legs in those few seconds do a lot to lift the album, despite their brevity.
There’s nothing wrong with that kind of pop music, either. But here, DeMarco clearly wants to step away from that and chase other dreams. He describes Five Easy Hot Dogs as “what rolling around (…) feels like” in the record’s press release, and upon hearing that, one can only be a little jealous of his worldview as this album is serene in ways that few others can match. The album, though brief, is a solid listen even if it could use more variation from track to track.
Five Easy Hot Dogs is set to be released on January 20th 2023.
Words by Reece Beckett
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