On the Level
Mac DeMarco
"On the Level" is the coldest song Mac DeMarco has recorded, and it's built almost entirely from synthesizer. A single arpeggiated bass pulse ticks through the whole track like a pressure gauge, joined by low pads and a thin, glassy lead — the chorused guitar that defines his sound is nearly absent, replaced by something machined and airless. That distance is deliberate. The lyric replays a father's counsel, "son, you're looking thin," half-remembered advice delivered from a man who was rarely there, and the chorus that answers it — "and let this fire burn me down" — sounds less like acceptance than resignation. He sings in a low, flattened register, no lilt, no wink, holding notes past comfort. Recorded in Queens for a record about lineage and dread, it functions as the album's dark spine, the moment where the persona of the gap-toothed goofball is fully set down. There's a lineage in it too: the synth palette owes something to '80s Japanese city pop and to Springsteen's *Nebraska*-era chill. Listen to it driving at night, or at the kitchen table after a phone call you didn't want to take.
slow
2010s
machined, airless, cold
Canada
synth-pop, art pop. cold synth ballad. cold, resigned. half-remembered paternal advice is replayed and answered with flattened resignation, not acceptance. energy 3. slow. danceability 3. valence 3. vocals: low, flattened, no lilt, held past comfort. production: arpeggiated synth bass pulse, low pads, thin glassy lead, minimal guitar. texture: machined, airless, cold. acousticness 1. era: 2010s. Canada. driving at night, or at the kitchen table after an unwanted phone call