Mac DeMarco Announces Instrumental Album ‘Five Easy Hot Dogs’

Mac DeMarco has announced his new album, Five Easy Hot Dogs. It arrives on CD and digital platforms on January 20 via Mac’s Record Label ahead of its vinyl release on May 12.

The instrumental collection was created while traveling across North America, with each song named after the city in which it was recorded.

The tracklist is sequenced in the chronological order in which the songs were produced. DeMarco set out on his journey to make Five Easy Hot Dogs in January 2022 with the plan to stay and record in motels, hotels, or people’s houses.

“The nature of ripping around and recording and traveling in this manner doesn’t lend well to sitting around and planning or thinking about what it was that I was setting out to do,” DeMarco said in a statement. “I didn’t ever have a sound in mind, or a theme or anything, I would just start recording. Luckily the collection of recordings from this period all shake hands, they have a present musical identity as a whole. I was in it while I was in it, and this is what came out of it, just the way it was.”

Demarco’s last album was 2019’s Here Comes the Cowboy. In late December, he continued his tradition of Christmas covers with his rendition of “It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas.” DeMarco’s take on the song added a slightly jazzy touch to the standard with his signature piano, while bells make the cover even more whimsical. It comes with a fun music video in which DeMarco and Dan McNeill ride around Los Angeles on motorcycles while wearing inflatable costumes of Santa Claus and a gingerbread man.

Pre-order Five Easy Hot Dogs.

Five Easy Hot Dogs includes the following tracks:

“Gualala”
“Gualala 2”
“Crescent City”
“Portland”
“Portland 2”
“Victoria”
“Vancouver”
“Vancouver 2”
“Vancouver 3”
“Edmonton”
“Edmonton 2”
“Chicago 1”
“Chicago 2”
“Rockaway”