Juan Wauters Collaborates with Former Labelmate Mac DeMarco

Indie singer-songwriter Juan Wauters lined up a slew of special guests for his forthcoming album, Real Life Situation, which is due out this spring via Captured Tracks. It features collaborations with Mac DeMarco, Peter Sagar (AKA Homeshake), Nick Hakim, Cola Boyy, El David Aguilar and others. 

In advance of its release, Wauters issued a new single and video, “Real (with Mac DeMarco).” Much like preceding single/video “Presentation (with Nick Hakim and Benamin),” the pensive “Real” suggests a longing for warm days. In the Matthew Volz-directed video, Wauters and DeMarco ride through sunny L.A. on bicycles, motorcycles and horses as DeMarco’s laid-back guitars underscores Wauters’ introspective spoken word vocals.

The album serves as “a multifaceted ode to surrendering control and taking life as it comes.” 

“Mac and I met in 2013 when our label Captured Tracks thought it would be a good idea that we meet and do a song,” says Wauters in a press release. “We met and recorded Beatles songs. The tape machine we were working with broke, and the songs were never recovered. After that, we never collaborated in any serious way. When I reached out to Mac about the new project I was doing, he was down since the beginning. I happened to be going to L.A., so we did it at his studio. Mac provided a really safe place to bounce ideas off of each other. We tried a lot of new things and we ended up with this track so special.”

The song put an end to that awaited collaboration that was the initial impulse behind us meeting and forming a friendship that stood in time.

The album features older songs, phone notes, new material, and snippets from TV and YouTube. It provides an aural document of the year through Wauters’ eyes. Jubilant choruses and spoken word poetry bleed into city noises and overheard conversations.

A trip through Latin America laid the groundwork for this different approach heard on 2018’s La Onda De Juan Pablo and its follow-up, Introducing Juan Pablo. On Real Life Situations, he’s channeled this collaborative spirit. 

Real Life Situations will be released digitally on April 30 and physically on May 14.