Mac Demarco- Another One

(Captured Tracks)

LP | CD | CAS | DL

Available from 7th November 2025

Our Score

Revisiting one of his dearest teenage albums, Kai Marshall takes another listen to Mac Demarco’s Another One.

Music-obsessed teenagers carry their passion over to adulthood. Sometimes these young people find themselves swept up into cultural phenomena like Beatlemania. Perhaps you were wrapped up in a 00s emo scene that the long memory of iCloud storage will never let you forget. Then there are albums that just stay with you and never leave regardless of any ‘scene’ or musical era. 

Wonky bedroom indie music is a genre of its own- Daniel Johnston being just one early name. As a former wistful and sentimental teenager myself, somehow nostalgic with little to feel nostalgic about, I had heard of an artist called Mac Demarco. His album Another One had just come out and it was destined to follow me into my 20s. 

Brooklyn label Captured Tracks are recognising this album with a double LP anniversary release containing both the original album and the odds-and-sods Another (demo) One. There is something special that happens when a vinyl collector finally adds ‘that album’ to their collection- this is the exact thrill I felt upon receiving this collection in the post. 

If it sounds like the author has a vested interest in promoting this album that is because it is absolutely true- I have loved this music for as long as it’s been out. There is beauty to Mac’s songwriting that evokes Paul McCartney at his absolute minimalist best (for Mac Demarco’s Another One, see McCartney 1). 

Mac’s style is self-described as jizz-jazz- whatever that means, it is the perfect description. The Way You’d Love Her opens with a psychedelic chilled-out zig-zagging jizz-jazzing guitar riff that you can imagine he plays with a toothy grin on his face. Mac has recently suggested he is in his crooner era and it’s easy to see the path that led here on this track- swap the guitars for a swing band and you’ve got yourself Mac Demarco live at the Sands Hotel. 

The title track hints at a personal insecurity that winks and nods at the suggestion that this is a break-up album. Long-time listeners will know this already, of course, but anyone that missed this mini-album first time around could be easily fooled in to thinking this is just a goofball project lacking substance. It’s easy to make conclusions like this about Mac if you were to listen to his albums without context and in chronological order. You’d be wrong to reach this conclusion. 

Now, nobody official has ever asked me what my desert island disks are- maybe they never will. I know the reader hasn’t asked either but, if you had, No Other Heart would be on there at least twice. This song has been on rotation for me for a decade. I must resurrect the McCartney comparison here as the bassline is up there with Hey Bulldog and Something. In this song, Mac devises the magic formula of deploying an individual experience, stirring in an ounce of aesthetics and turning it into a universal experience. Some masterpieces are the ones that are knocked up the quickest- the updated liner notes say this album was written and recorded in 3 weeks.  

Some of the best music also juxtaposes life’s great pains and miseries with music that makes you move. Just To Put Me Down blends heart-wrenching sadness with whimsiness and playfulness. Mac’s music is a lesson for all musicians and artists- never be anyone but yourself. 

A Heart Like Hers and Without Me take us through several stages of grief. The former displaying a childish anger at romantic rejection that many can recognise in themselves, as well as the denial that comes after losing a partner that we could ever love again. The latter song accepts the ending of a relationship lyrically and musically. The singer finally able to understand that life can, will and must go on. 

I love music that can capture specific experiences in a short space of time, like lightning in a bottle. I suppose that is one aspect of, perhaps it is the essence, of pop music. This album impressed me when I was 16/17 and it impresses me now. 

The second disk captures Maccas 60s Scottish farmyard DIY vibe more as the demos here are, as demos should be, rough around the edges. It displays the beautiful product that is the finished album in its distinct parts. Throw in some spidery warm instrumentals and a cup of tea and you’ve got yourself a cosy evening. 

The album closes with My House By The Water. The story goes that the address Mac gives us in this song led to hundreds of people turning up and expecting strange conversations, coffee and barbecues. The address was for the house he lived and recorded the album in. In his liner notes, Demarco says that the house is still in the possession of Mac-adjacents and he would perhaps be willing one day to do it again. Well, I don’t plan on flying to New York to see this house any time soon. Instead, I will use this album to make me feel at home wherever else I may be in the world. Just like I have always done. 

Mac Demarco avoids social media.

Find Captured Tracks on instagram here. Find Mac’s Record Label here.

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All words by Kai Marshall. Read more from Kai on his authors archive and find him on Instagram