"Macky's been a bad, bad boy..." These demos from the Salad Days sessions indicate that Mac Demarco had begun to upgrade his recording setup leading up to what would be his breakthrough album, as they’re all slightly cleaner than the tracks found on 2 Demos (also just reissued). Mac’s records are all done at home anyway, so what you’ll find here is more of a difference in cadence and arrangements than audio fidelity… it’s not like you’re listening to lo-fi 4-track demos of a band that would eventually flesh them out into 24-track prog epics like Rush or Pink Floyd or something. In other words, if you’d never heard Salad Days before, Salad Days Demos could easily pass as a Mac album, only with a lot of extra instrumentals. The OG “Passing Out Pieces” features a much louder synth part - this is the ultimate version as far as we’re concerned - while the demo versions of “Salad Days” (drum machine!) and “Blue Boy" are easy on the ears and a nice alternative if you’ve worn out the Salad Days versions. Unused instrumentals “Ken The Wolf Boy,” “Horse Hot Wee Wee Water,”  “Avocado Andrew” and the Boards Of Canada-esque (I mean, Mac is from Canada after all…) “Organ Ronald Donkey Water” are begging to be revisited and turned into songs. Frankly, there’s a ton of new music here; the only thing we could ask for is an alt version of “Chamber Of Reflection” (c’mon dawg!). Limited edition repress on white vinyl to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Captured Tracks, recommended.

• white colored vinyl
• Captured Tracks 10th anniversary edition
• digital download included
• limited edition of 5000
• music label: Captured Tracks 2018

reviewed by avocado andrew 08/2018