2 (10th Year Anniversary)

USインディの最新巨人ことMAC DEMARCO、出世作の10周年記念盤が古巣CAPTURED TRACKSより登場!

2012年に発表され、脱力感と爽快感が同時に来るアレンジが、瞬く間に新時代の到来を告げる作品になったMAC DEMARCOのデビューフルアルバム『2』。今回発売10周年記念としてデラックス盤が登場!
元々の収録曲に加え、単体でも発売されていたデモ音源集、MAC本人による新規ライナーノーツが掲載されたブックレットが梱包。
当時聴いて衝撃を受けた人、現在まだ聴いてなくてでも気になる人、インディロック大好きっ子全てに捧げたい渾身のデラックス盤です。"MY KIND OF WOMAN"のシティポップにも通じるモダンとローファイの神秘的な融合、ジャケットやMVから醸し出される明るい諦念ムードは、この作品以降の主流になる要素であり、未来を予見していたとしか思えません!

Vancouver, British Columbia weirdo Mac DeMarco appeared under his own name in the spring of 2012 with Rock and Roll Night Club, a grab-bag album's worth of songs marketed as an EP. The atmosphere on R&RNC was jagged, with tracks either sounding identical or taking sharp stylistic left turns, with results ranging from warm bedroom pop to Ween-esque demented goofery. Just months after the release of that confusing collection comes 2, DeMarco's proper full-length debut. Though his off-kilter pop sounds got rolling in the late 2000s with his Makeout Videotape project, the development he's been working on since his early cassette-only albums comes into full focus here, with his songs sounding as serious and straightforward as DeMarco's trickster-like persona will allow. Part of this is the sense of cohesion that runs through the album. The sincerity of even the most delicate songs on R&RNC was called into question when they were placed side by side with stoned, sophomoric ones. While 2 maintains a damaged sense of humor, there's less absurdity afoot. Instead, DeMarco puts his energy toward cultivating a strange late-night loner atmosphere, which touches even the yacht-rock partying apology song "Freaking Out the Neighborhood" and the wiggly jam band guitar noodling of "Annie." Heavy repetition factors into the cohesiveness of the album as well. Without completely recycling melodies or lyrics, "Ode to Viceroy" sounds pretty directly similar to "My Kind of Woman" in tonality, pacing, and general feel. The nocturnal shut-in undertones permeate most of DeMarco's tunes, sounding like he's singing from deep within some private world in his mind similar to his contemporaries like Ariel Pink, John Maus, and Willis Earl Beal. Even the wobbly instrumental "Boe Zaah" blends into the bigger framework of 2, winding the record down into its final songs without feeling either jarringly different or tacked on. If anything, 2 borders on sounding so cohesive the songs become indistinguishable from one another. The album's gentle acoustic closer, "Still Together," does much to even out the rest of the album, wrapping up the eccentric smoky guitar jams and tongue-in-cheek moments of 2 with an unexpectedly sweet slice of spare, devotional balladry. DeMarco is still a befuddling character, but the compressed landscape of 2 takes steps away from his cartoonish beginnings toward something equally strange, but possibly more grown up. ~ Fred Thomas

今年3月に本人が口紅を塗るケバいジャケ写のEPで鮮烈なデビューを飾ったカナダの妖しいロックンローラーが、ついにフル・アルバムを上梓した。なぜか妖気ならぬ陽気な兄ちゃん風に変貌したアートワークにはズッコケてしまうが、安心してほしい。サイケに揺らぐ弛緩ギターと不安定なのにやたら艶めく歌唱は、前作以上のインパクトだ。感性の赴くままに紡いだようなメロディーも妙にポップ。天才なのか変態なのか……。
bounce (C)北爪啓之