Octoberman — Chutes
Released August 13, 2025
From Toronto, Ontario
Indie Folk / Indie Rock
With Chutes, their seventh full-length release, Toronto’s Octoberman return with a record that leans into simplicity, presence, and emotional clarity. Produced by Jarrett Bartlett and bandleader Marc Morrissette, and captured live at Ottawa’s Little Bullhorn Studios, the album was recorded straight to two-inch tape, without the safety net of click tracks or screens. The result is a warm, organic sound — a collection of songs that embraces imperfection as a kind of truth.
Thematically, Chutes looks squarely at aging, shifting relationships, and the subtle weight of memory. Some of the tracks began as rediscovered demos, sketches of imagined lives and characters; others are new, introspective pieces written in the shadow of grief and change. Together, they form a cycle of songs preoccupied with endings, beginnings, and the fragile threads that tie them together.
The current Octoberman lineup — Marc Morrissette (guitar, vocals, synth), Marshall Bureau (drums, vibraphone), Tavo Diez de Bonilla (bass, vocals), J.J. Ipsen (guitar), and Annelise Noronha (accordion, banjo, guitar, background vocals) — gives the album its understated texture. The live-off-the-floor sessions were later complemented with overdubs from home studios, introducing new instrumental colors like accordion, banjo, and vibraphone to the Octoberman sound. These subtle additions bring a sense of intimacy and quiet experimentation to the record’s reflective tone.
For Morrissette, the loss of his mother sharpened the album’s perspective on impermanence and resilience. That experience informs much of Chutes, where grief coexists with love, fear, and gratitude — emotions that sit just beneath the surface of even the most unassuming melodies.
Over the past two decades, Octoberman have built a catalog that’s earned comparisons to artists like Elliott Smith, Sparklehorse, and Stephen Malkmus. Their songs have appeared on Grey’s Anatomy and they’ve shared stages with Julie Doiron, Mount Eerie, and Owen Pallett. Now, with band members scattered across Ontario after years in Toronto and Vancouver, Chutes arrives not as a reinvention but as a reaffirmation: a quiet acceptance of change, set to music that feels lived-in, patient, and deeply human.
© Thusblog
