In 2023,
Mac DeMarco let the music do the talking for the most part, starting the year with the release of the fully instrumental travelogue
Five Easy Hot Dogs and then dumping out the archives with literal hours of unreleased demos and semi-finished sketches on
One Wayne G, a collection that was also largely instrumental.
DeMarco's instrumental voice has long been a facet of his appeal, though. In 2015, shortly after releasing the mini-album
Another One, he shared the completely instrumental collection
Some Other Ones as a download-exclusive release. Written, recorded, and otherwise rendered over the course of a five-day jag,
Some Other Ones was intended to be the soundtrack to a summer Bar-B-Q, light and happy background music that was in keeping with
DeMarco's wobbly pop sensibilities. With the wide-scale release of
Some Other Ones eight years later, he brings this collection of carefree sounds into contrast with his instrumental output that followed. Arriving not long after 2014's
Salad Days,
Some Other Ones is
DeMarco at the summit of his breakthrough phase. Though wordless, the songs have the same drippy, happily unstable production as other of his releases at the time. The dazzled synths and yacht rock melodies of "Onion Man" or the off-center dreaminess of "Don Juan" are from a time when
DeMarco's lackadaisical charm was on full blast, and the only thing keeping bumbling rockers like "Fish Terry" from sounding like
Salad Days outtakes are the analog-recorded
Lennon-via-
Davies vocals
DeMarco was exploring at the time. At just about 22 minutes,
Some Other Ones is slight and slapdash, but it's an excellent annex to some of the best work in his catalog. Compared to the aimless and sometimes heavy
Five Easy Hot Dogs or the weaker instrumental segments of
One Wayne G,
Some Other Ones flashes back to a time when
DeMarco was just goofing around and having nothing but fun. ~ Fred Thomas