SXSW 2013 Records

Mac DeMarco

Mac DeMarco might like you; he might not. The 22-year-old Montreal songwriter stays in shady ambiguity on debut album 2. He sings about weed, he sings about a bad father, he sings about doing nothing until it stops being fun. The balmy regularity of his guitar might be his only friend. "And I'm down on my hands and knees, begging you please, baby, show me your world," he plaintively unreels on "My Kind of Woman." Existential reckoning? Summer daze? Yippy love? It's hard not to listen, whatever it is. DeMarco writes songs to figure out his own personal truth. It feels real, from his cigarette-scorched throat to the drifting, occasionally out-of-tune guitar. He's earned a reputation for sticking drumsticks where the sun don't shine as a midset gag, and even that doesn't feel forced. 2 is nothing if not authentic. (7:30pm, Swan Dive; 10:10pm, Hotel Vegas Patio; Sat., 10:30pm, Parish)