If Nothing Happens at All, I’m Leaving is the atmospheric newest release from Saint John native Hunter J. Wilson. At just over 14 minutes, the EP is almost shorter than its title. Still, there’s much to be said for how much heart is woven into such little time.
The four-track EP is a collaborative effort between Wilson and Dan Boyer, who plays drums on the project. Both have a plethora of experience in the Saint John music scene, and though they’ve been playing together for 13 years, this is their first official release together. With such a small amount of hands on board, it feels particularly homegrown, resulting in some truly gritty charm. Parts of it seem more polished than others, but in a way that’s carefully crafted.
The instrumentation is a major selling point of this EP. It feels intentionally showcased, with the mixing of the vocals feeling both distant and disconnected in a way that adds to the overall dreamy tones of the album. The guitar is often crystalline, especially in “Living Words” as it plays beneath Wilson assuredly singing, “If nothing happens at all, I’m leaving.”
“Pretty Habits” proves to be an interesting outlier on the project. The song has Wilson giving a muted wail over bluesy riffs and drum rolls. While most of the songs have a certain atmospheric quality to them, this one paints an especially vivid scene – like it’s being played from across a smoke-filled room.
This ambience is the running thread here. Even with “Pretty Habits” making a divergence, it still shares that in common with the rest of the songs on the EP. Wilson and Boyer play with this ambience a lot. “Withered” is a softer track with the slightest hint of urgency to its tempo, but it’s abruptly cut short. “Living Words” leads the EP to a swift conclusion in much the same way. It’s such an ending that the silence that follows takes a moment to be fully processed, leaving just enough surprise that another listen will almost certainly be in order.