Pete Muller has spent much of his adult life walking a tightrope between two different vastly different worlds.

“One part of me is a very practical, analytical thinker,” says the gifted singer/songwriter and innovative business leader, “and the other is this creative artist who can’t help but express what’s going on in his soul. For a long time, I thought I had to choose between the two, but I’ve realized that I can love both sides of myself, that it’s AND, not OR.”

More Time, Muller’s captivating new album, is proof of that. Recorded in Memphis with producer/engineer Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price) and featuring a duet with Lisa Loeb, the collection marks a dramatic leap forward for Muller, who finds himself exploring the push and pull of responsibility and desire, predictability and adventure, commitment and temptation. Where Muller’s previous work leaned more towards carefully arranged folk and roots, More Time is a freewheeling slice of rock and soul captured with an all-star band including celebrated bassist Dave Smith (Al Green, Wilson Pickett), famed Texas guitarist Will Sexton (Joe Ely, Roky Erickson), Memphis organist Rick Steff (Lucero, Cat Power), and longtime Wilco drummer Ken Coomer. The result is an ecstatic exploration of what it means to be human in all its messy, mixed-up contradictions, a sometimes-exultant, sometimes-pensive meditation that embraces AND over OR as it revels in the joy of discovering—and becoming—the people we’re meant to be.