Octoberman Announces New LP Chutes With Advance Video-Single “Harry Nilsson”

Toronto-via-Vancouver indie folk-rock outfit Octoberman returns with Chutes, their seventh full-length album, due later this year on Ishmalia Records. To mark the announcement, the band shares its advance single and video, “Harry Nilsson,” out August 13. A shimmering blend of jangle-pop and wistful storytelling, the track draws inspiration from the late singer’s iconic take on “Without You.” “I had recently lost my mother, so I was hyper-aware of mortality and how things can turn on a dime,” says songwriter Marc Morrissette. “Losing an ever-present person in your life makes you more afraid of it happening again, especially as a father and husband. In the end, it’s like losing a part of yourself that never comes back.”

The single’s video pairs the song’s airy, powder-soft tones with gorgeous faux vintage footage from filmmaker and extreme skier Nick Steers. “I remembered a conversation with Nick about the relationship between aging and our passions,” says Morrissette. “For him, it’s about constantly preparing your body to be able to ski down mountains at high speeds. For aging musicians, there’s a physical aspect, but I’d say the bigger challenge is psychologically navigating this ever evolving world around us.” That same curiosity and vulnerability ripples through the full album, which opens with the line, “It’s hard to know just how to grow old”—a kind of thesis statement for a record that navigates change, grief, and reinvention with quiet grace.

“Harry Nilsson” was tracked live to two-inch tape at Little Bullhorn Studios in Ottawa with longtime collaborator Jarrett Bartlett, who co-produced the record with Morrissette. “We didn’t use a click or computer screen—it was all feel,” he says. Core players Marshall Bureau (drums), Tavo Diez de Bonilla (bass), and Morrissette recorded live off the floor, with J.J. Ipsen (guitar) and Annelise Noronha (background vocals, banjo) adding their parts from home studios across Ontario. The mix was handled by Bartlett and mastered by Philip Shaw Bova.

Described by Pitchfork as “Stephen Malkmus at his loosest” and by Uncut as “a sunnier Elliott Smith or Sparklehorse,” Octoberman has built a cult following across Canada and abroad. Over the years, they’ve earned placements on shows like Grey’s Anatomy, toured internationally with artists like Julie Doiron and Mount Eerie, and quietly evolved into one of the country’s most quietly enduring folk-rock collectives. Chutes may be their most reflective record yet—but like the best of their catalog, it never stops moving forward.

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