Mac DeMarco has said that he isn’t planning on releasing a new album while the coronavirus pandemic is ongoing.

The Canadian musician’s last studio album arrived in May 2019 with ‘Here Comes The Cowboy’. Two sets of demos, ‘Here Comes The Cowboy Demos’ and ‘Other Here Comes The Cowboy Demos’, have followed this year.

Speaking to Julian Casablancas for a new feature in Interview Magazine, DeMarco said that the limitations on life that have been enforced by the pandemic haven’t inspired him to write any more prolifically this year.

“It’s weird right now. We’ve got this coronavirus bullshit,” he said. “People ask: ‘Oh, you must be making all of these records.’ And it’s like: ‘No, I haven’t.’ There’s a block for me. I need things with definite ends.”

Casablancas offered the view that as “a social dude,” DeMarco may need the “pressure valves of what people do: the going out, seeing shows, hanging out with friends, all those things, is what makes your blood circulate”.

DeMarco agreed and said that while he had written some new songs this year, he wasn’t keen on the idea of releasing a record and not being able to tour it.

“I’ve been writing songs, but the idea of doing a full record and then the idea of that record coming out in the middle of a pandemic digitally only, and then there’s no prospect of ever performing these things unless it’s on a live stream or something – I’m worried we’re going to come out of coronavirus, and there’s going to be 9,000 albums that are all like: [Singing] ‘Oh quarantine, baby, baby’.

“I’m not there for that.”

Earlier this week, DeMarco released his laidback cover of the Christmas classic ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’.