“Brother,” a complete future classic, is Mac at his most soulful and easygoing but with that distinct weirdness and bite that can only come from Mr. The crisp John Lennon/Phil Spector era homegrown lush production that could have come off Geoff Emerick’s mixing board in 1972 with that peculiar Mac touch that’s completely right now is still present.
Standout tracks like these show Mac’s widening sound, whether insights into future directions or even just welcome one-off forays into new territory.Still, this is musically, lyrically and melodically good old Mac DeMarco, through and through. “Chamber of Reflection,” a track featuring icy synth stabs and soulful crooning, wouldn’t be out of place on a fantasy Shuggie Otis and Prince collaboration. The lead single, “Passing Out Pieces,” set to huge overdriven organ chords, contains lines like “…never been reluctant to share, passing out pieces of me…” Clearly, this isn’t the same record that breezily gave us “Dreamin” and “Ode to Viceroy,” but the result of what comes from their success.
Written and recorded around a relentless touring schedule, Salad Days gives the listener a very personal insight into what it’s all about to be Mac amidst the craziness of a rising career in a very public format. Someone strangely self-aware of the positives and negatives of their current situation at the ripe old age of 24. Amongst that familiar croon and lilting guitar, that initial line from the title track sets the tone for an LP of a maturing singer/songwriter/producer. In doing so, we rediscover joys we forgot during our manic race to the dead end.“As I’m getting older, chip up on my shoulder…” is the opening line from Mac DeMarco’s second full-length LP Salad Days, the follow up to 2012’s lauded Mac DeMarco 2.
“We have customers who buy a Jil Sander coat, then to save money they’ll stay home at night and learn to make beer.”Īt the finish of any regrettable life episode, we invariably go back to basics to distinguish values that are real and indissoluble from those that are false and temporary. How does one reconcile the relatively expensive price of perfect tomatoes and/or perfect clothing? If it’s all going to end up as landfill anyway, it should all be really good-looking.” You want to find that jacket that is your most perfect tomato, and wear it for 20 years. Like ‘slow food’? We like to think of our clothes as ‘slow clothes.’ We’re not fashion victims. Disposable fashion is like fast food! We honor the hands that make clothes. They sell the freshest stuff at its most perfect point in time. Ospital, who speaks in free-associative bouquets of enthusiastic appreciation and well-tuned mission statements. “Our model is really the farmers’ market,” said Mr. I bought his black wool sweat-kilt ($198) and would have bought the matching zipper jacket had it not been $400 (a fair price had my wardrobe budget not already been damaged beyond sanity this year). I was taken by the work of Ryan Roberts, a men’s designer specializing in Italian knits. “Sometimes it takes a Japanese man to reinterpret American style and show what’s good about it,” Mr. MAC has a truly superlative men’s section, with selections from Engineered Garments, which has rediscovered Woolrich Woolen Mills and made masculine plaid shirts worthy of Jack London.
Ospital included a pair of Martin Margiela cotton leggings in a faux fishnet print, and a Tsumori Chisato skirt inspired by the movie “Helvetica,” featuring the designer’s name, laser-cut and layered into black Helvetica frills ($748). She showed me how one reversible gown with an obi-size Audrey Hepburn bow could also be used as a kind of fashionable arm restraint. “All the Belgians are ‘on the bow’ right now,” Ms. Chris Ospital walked me through her current favorites: a collection by Dirk Van Saene of whiplash-collar sweaters, massive mohair coats in bright Muppet colors, and wool party dresses exaggerated into primary triangles with big bows. The clothing in the shop shows a clear bias toward Belgian and Japanese designers. One of Creative Growth’s rising stars, the self-taught William Scott, was commissioned to draw the MAC holiday card: a slightly too glamorous pencil portrait of Barack Obama, next to the words CITIZEN PRESIDENT in block letters an image, ever so slightly off, that blazes with unfiltered pride. His appreciation for the work of these artists is genuine and wholly infectious. Ospital has done considerable work for the Creative Growth Art Center, an organization that supports disabled artists.