“ is not about my career or opportunities or anything like that,” DeMarco clarifies. “It’s more about the general vibe of being alive. While scene may not have had much sway on the album's outcome, it’s clear the concept of time passing by weighs heavy. DeMarco contemplates age with “My Old Man” and “This Old Dog” (he reveals he has never had a dog, though there is one who lives down the block from him named Cadence that runs to his house and scratches on the door), and waxes nostalgic on “For The First Time” and “Dreams From Yesterday” - his favorite off the album that serves as both a check up and reminder “to make sure I count my blessings' (one of which is his upcoming tour with The Flaming Lips that came about when DeMarco met frontman Wayne Coyne at a Tame Impala show in New York). “The only difference was looking out the window and being like, ‘Oh, there’s a palm tree.’” The rest of the album was finished in Los Angeles, where DeMarco recently relocated to from Queens, New York, but he says the change of coast had no lyrical or sonic influence on the album: “It’s just one bedroom to another I was in the same headspace,” he says. Once DeMarco’s label told him if he wanted to put out a record in early in 2017 that it would have to be done around Christmas time, he decided to start by pulling from the ones he already had. Since he didn’t plan on sharing them with the public, they ended up sitting for some time - a new, and unintentional, tactic for the indie artist, considering in the past once he has finished a project he typically releases it “as quickly as possible” (evidenced by the five projects he has released in the past five years). Looking to the past largely shaped this album, from the lyrics even to the way in which the record was pieced together. Back in early 2016, DeMarco wrote several songs that he says “were just for myself” while still living in New York. He recalls how Young “is somebody that my family has listened to since I was really young.' “I was just letting it flow.” The Canadian-born singer-songwriter cites the work of a fellow Canadian, Neil Young’s Harvest, as one of his most influential records and says he is always trying to make that album, but with synths. “A lot of the songs I wrote not thinking I was going to put them on an album, so I didn’t put up any block or barrier,” DeMarco tells Billboard. His latest LP, This Old Dog (out May 5), sees the recent 27-year-old deliver his most personal music yet with lyrics that speak to family matters - namely his often absent father - and growing out of his 20s all while managing to create a body of work that, at times, feels ageless and entirely anonymous. Mac DeMarco’s calming, laid-back attitude is mirrored in his 80s-esque, synth-driven slow jams.

Mac demarco birth chart