CV

Photo by Mink Oil.

TYLER DAMON (b. 1987, Cincinnati, OH USA) is a Chicago, Illinois based artist whose work aims to reveal obscured, mercurial narratives via drums/percussion & free improvisation.

In addition to solo work, Tyler is involved in extended duo exhibitions with guitarist Tashi Dorji, saxophonist Dave Rempis, & bassist Darin Gray (as Duo Oninbo). Building upon the foundation of the Dorji/Damon duo, the pair is frequently expanded into a range of trios featuring Rempis (as Kuzu), Mette Rasmussen, & Thom Nguyen (as Manas). Other recent outfits also include a startling new trio with NYC improvisers Sam Weinberg and Henry Fraser and a Chicago quartet featuring Gerrit Hatcher, Paul Giallorenzo and Andrew Scott Young. He is often found drumming with Circuit Des Yeux and is also frequently engaged with John Dawson as the shape-shifting outfit Thee Open Sex.

Tyler has toured extensively in North America, Europe, Vietnam, & Colombia and is also regularly engaged with other artists, musicians and heads of various sorts across the American Midwest. From home, he quietly operates his own label, Yoke, and previously hosted the long-running free-form/experimental radio program Melody Unasked For on Bloomington, IN community radio station WFHB. From 2010-2015, he was a principle curator of “out” music in the Bloomington area at several now-defunct DIY venues. Tyler’s recorded output has been offered by a myriad of labels including Family Vineyard, Astral Spirits, Trost, Magnetic South, Feeding Tube, Drag City, Auris Apothecary, Sophomore Lounge, Amalgam, Medium Sound, Long Gone Sound System, Let’s Pretend, Park 70 & Yoke.

“Damon draws so many sounds out of his kit so quickly and with such intention and imagination it’s hard to imagine it coming from one person.” – Isaac Olson, Dusted Magazine

“…his solo showcase […] shows that he can play dynamically, fading up from near nothingness to passages where his surging attack fills all available space like a deploying airbag.” – Bill Meyer, Wire Magazine #363

“…his blending of scrape disciplines, stream-of-conscious phrasings and subtle tribal rolls is beatifically disorienting and hypnotic and evocative of animal rutting and fighting and writhing…” – Jacob An Kittenplan, Cassette Gods

“[Tyler is] the up-and-coming young drummer in the Midwest and a voice that will be active for years to come.” – Darin Gray