Montreal-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Niall Mutter is announcing his upcoming EP, Pass Me By, set for release on April 22, 2022 courtesy of Lighter Than Air / Nice Guys. Written over the course of a year, Mutter says “I had moved to Montréal on a whim, couch surfing between friends and a new lover. The album is about finding levity in a period of transition. It’s about pain and self assessment, and submitting to things being a bit wacky and out of my control.”

Niall has spent most of his life oscillating between the seasons, tree planting in the Canadian bush in the summer and escaping to the mountains out West for the winter. When a friend invited him out to Quebec for a couple weeks, he pulled into Montreal’s tightly knit music community and never left. Couch surfing in the middle of a raging pandemic gave him the instability and disheveled edge he needed to bring his songwriting hiatus to an end, finishing and releasing his first single “You” — a disco-shimmered summer love song that was immediately well received.

His country roots inspire his minimalist production style and narrative lyricism, while his desire for transience adds an almost undetectable sentiment to his dreamy beached-out vocals. He brings a floaty dance trance to his states of confusion, teasing out his lover’s quarrels with a sonic harmony, sculpting the inbetween as a comfortable resting space for himself, often rocking unsureness like a trusted pair of boots.