Credit: Kiera McNally

Mac DeMarco surprise releases a 199-track album ‘One Wayne G’

Fri 21 April 2023 8:59, UK

Canadian singer-songwriter Mac DeMarco has released a 199-track album titled One Wayne G. The surprise release follows the star’s fifth studio album, Five Easy Hot Dogs, which arrived on January 20th. The new bumper collection was named after famed hockey player Wayne Gretzky, as confirmed by a new post on DeMarco’s Instagram page.

DeMarco has developed his sound since his early peak of 2014, namely Salad Days. In a three-star review of DeMarco’s fifth album, Far Out wrote: “Five Easy Hot Dogs mostly just finds DeMarco making shit up and playing whatever comes to him, whether it’s finished or fleshed-out. Most of the time, it’s not. But if you need some quality studying music, Five Easy Hot Dogs will be perfect in that capacity. As always seems to be the case, DeMarco shines without doing very much at all, making Five Easy Hot Dogs perhaps the ultimate endpoint to his search for maximum chillage.”

It appears this languid edge that DeMarco portrays in his music is countered by a roaring passion for music. The result of this is a lot of contrived or half-baked ideas. Presumably, the 199 tracks that appear in One Wayne G were created with the same characteristic sense of stoned abandon.

Rather than naming all 199 tracks – which would be a mammoth task in itself – DeMarco has left them with dates. This suggests the tracks are rough ideas and sketches of songs recorded between 2018 and January 2023. Some have appeared in live performances under different titles, but most are brand new.

You can hear the album below. At just under nine hours on the clock, we suggest you spread this one out with small bites.