By barnaby
Boy Golden, Bob Moses, July Talk, The Beaches, Metric, Dear Rouge, The Glorious Sons, Arkells, Billy Talent, The Darcys, Monowhales, Anyway Gang, Mother Mother, and Dear Rouge stand out in the year-end Alt category.
Mac DeMarco
The album surfaced after his show in Moncton, New Brunswick and has since been uploaded to SoundCloud. It follows the surprise release of Dog on the Rock in November, which was later uploaded to YouTube.
Mac DeMarco has released his third album of 2025.
The indie singer-songwriter is in the midst of wrapping up the Canadian leg of his tour in support of his recent album, Guitar, released in August via his own label, Mac's Record Label. At a show last week in Moncton, New Brunswick, DeMarco handed out CD-R copies of Seven Off the Two to fans at the barricade.
On Friday (Dec. 5), Reddit user JackShediac wrote: "Went to the mac concert last night and got a different cd." They attached a photo of the disc, which includes album artwork seemingly signed by DeMarco. The post sent fans in a frenzy, with many begging the user to upload the tracks online.
from macdemarco
Two days later, they uploaded the eight-track album to SoundCloud under the username MacFan12345. Seven Off the Two features mellow acoustic jams with DeMarco singing hard-to-parse lyrics, often in his signature falsetto. On the project, the B.C.-native rips a page from his mostly-instrumental record One Wayne G — which peaked at No. 38 on the Billboard Canadian Albums chart — as the opening track features eight minutes of drums.
Seven Off the Two is the second secret project DeMarco has shared via CD-R. In November, while on tour in Europe, the indie rocker released Dog of the Rock in the same manner. One Reddit fan from across the pond said they acquired a copy that was taped to the barricade at DeMarco's show in Dublin, Ireland.
DeMarco referred to the project as "Mac's Secret Album" in a brief interview from the Arte Concert Festival in Paris. "I actually do have a bunch of recordings that I made in between these two tours, and I went to the print shop to make little album sleeves of that yesterday," he said. "So maybe there will be another secret album, but one that you can hear this time."
The 39-minute album was uploaded to YouTube on Nov. 21, consisting of 15 minimal ditties that double down on DeMarco's scatting over acoustic guitar, bass and drums, plus the occasional keyboard. The easygoing project is similar to Guitar — sans the lyrics.
Since breaking onto the scene in the early 2010s, DeMarco has remained true to himself as an artist, launching his own record label in 2019 and continuing to put out music on his own terms. Following the reveal of Dog on the Rock, Mac’s Record Label shared a snippet of the music on their Instagram stories, so it seems like they're fine with these tunes being out in the world.
With the release of Guitar, Dog on the Rock and now Seven Off the Two, DeMarco showcases his knack for crafting a DIY rollout and purposely unpolished tracks, seemingly in response to the increased use of AI in the music industry. “The most important part of art is the human element, I think. Be it good or bad, that’s what I want to hear," he shared with The Independent earlier this year.
DeMarco is set to take the stage at Toronto’s Massey Hall for two sold-out shows tonight (Dec. 8) and tomorrow (Dec. 9) — here’s hoping fans may get a chance to snag a copy of Seven Off the Two for themselves.
