Calliope Music Rapid Reviews
Mac DeMarco - One Wayne G
Bedroom Pop Personality, Mac DeMarco Unveils Years of Soft Rock Ambiance in this Eight Hour Voyage of Mellow Lounge.
Taking unfinished studio recordings from the last five years, DeMarco develops an ocean of relaxed acoustic tracks, animated by his signature twangy guitar and deep bass grooves. The guitars are accompanied by lukewarm drums, settling into minimalist frameworks of stubby electronic keys and jazzy vocalizations. This standard Bedroom Pop is occasionally interrupted by sprawling ambient tracks, fit with humming synth and the faint murmurs of public spaces or insects chirping.
Simple acoustics and quirky sound design shape tranquil tones, reinforced by zippy guitar plucking and intimate ambient samples. An overarching consistency in nostalgic atmosphere facilitates a sense of sorrow, countered by the innate defense mechanism of jest. It is this gloomy, but comfortable brown timbre that ushers a seamless mass of off-the-wall serenity.
That being said, this project is an enormous 8 hours 43 minutes in length, made up of 199 separate tracks. While clearly not intended to be the average studio album listening experience, One Wayne G falls victim to an extraordinarily bitter case of bloating. Many of the same sonic concepts are rehashed throughout the project over and over again, with minimal modification or instrumental diversity. This leads to a severe deficiency in disparateness, as underwhelming demos begin to blend together monotonously.
At the end of the day, DeMarco's 7th studio LP is unbashful in its composition, and the form of its consumption should be considered. As a full length album, the tedium of a profuse runtime trawls, desperately holding on to undecorated and repetitive progressions. When taken in more manageable snippets, the record is quite relaxing and provides a practical focus of downtempo guitar playing. This combination however, is slightly outweighed by long periods of uneventful developments, making it a reposeful, but arid undergoing.
Best Tracks: 20180816 -- 20181212 -- 20190801 -- You Made The Bed -- 20191215 -- 20191229 -- 20201110 -- 20201128 -- 20201231 -- 20210307 -- 20220128 -- 20220508
4/10
See Website For More Reviews: Calliope Music
Comments
Post a Comment