Ventifacts New Release – Chronic Town

Damon Waitkus’ microtonal collaboration with Ben Spees of The Mercury Tree, VENTIFACTS, has just released an EP covering the entirety of R.E.M.’s release Chronic Town, as one continuous, barreling suite of songs.

Damon: The essential ghost of R.E.M. was never so upfront for me as in their earliest material…There’s always been something appealing and natural about going microtonal with this stuff–something in the pungency of the expanded pitch pallet seems to bring back the hauntedness that grabbed me when I first heard these songs.

LISTEN HERE on the bandcamp.

What’s new with Jack O’ The Clock?

What’s new with Jack O’ The Clock? Damon (voice, instruments) and Emily (violin), with help from Kate (voice, bassoon), Thea (voice), and Victor Reynolds (instruments), are currently working on overdubs for a new album of material derived from the many recording sessions we did with Jason and Jordan before leaving California in 2019. Though these were the same sessions that produced our 2021 album

LEAVING CALIFORNIA, the mood and energy of the new album is a world apart. Look for updates on this process on this site in the coming months.

As for the live band, Damon and Emily have been rehearsing a slew of new composed material with founding member Kate McLoughlin, Victor Reynolds (bass/guitar) and Ben James (drums). We hope to start playing out locally before too long under a different name, but the material is complex and we are not quite ready yet!