The Mercury Tree

The Mercury Tree (sometimes referred to as Mercury Tree or TMT) is an experimental prog-rock band from Portland, Oregon, which composes and performs with microtonal tunings such as 17edo, 34edo, and others.

History

Lineup changes

The Mercury Tree performing „Stay the Corpse” at Dante's, Portland, 7 September 2023. Oliver Campbell (left), Connor Reilly (middle), Ben Spees (right)

The band began as a solo project of Benjamin Boyer Spees (commonly referred to as Ben Spees) in 2004. It evolved into a full band in 2006, with a lineup featuring James Crutcher on bass, Avery Cooper on guitar, Mike Byrne on drums, and Spees handling vocals, keyboard, and guitar. This iteration of the band released a self-titled LP in 2007, followed by the Eerie EP and Eerie B-sides in 2009. In 2010, the band released the Descent EP, which introduced Liz Kuhn on flute and djembe and made Alan Johnson the bassist.

Ben renewed The Mercury Tree in 2011 with Alan Johnson becoming the new official bassist of the band and Connor Reilly being the drummer, releasing their first studio album, Pterodactyls. By 2012, during the production of Freeze in Phantom Form, the lineup changed again with Aaron Clark taking over as bassist and contributing vocals. In subsequent years, The Mercury Tree collaborated with Red Forman on the Family Style EP, and in 2014, Oliver Campbell joined as bassist and backing vocalist for the Countenance LP, whose involvement stemmed from a recommendation by Aaron Clark, who was retiring from the band.

The 2016 release Permutations featured the core lineup of Ben Spees (vocals, keyboard, guitar), Connor Reilly (drums), and Oliver Campbell (bass, vocals). Guest contributors included Tony Mowe (saxophone on "Ether/Ore" and "Sympathesizer") and Aaron Clark (guitar on "Sympathesizer" and "Deep Five").

In 2019, the band collaborated with Deja Igliashon, also known as Cryptic Ruse, on Cryptic Tree, which included Neil Haverstick on oud for "Soaring Xenharmonic Plantain".

Deja became an official member, playing the guitar on their 2019 album Spidermilk, before leaving the band. The 2019 release brought back guest musician Tony Mowe, (saxophone on "Ark of an Ilk" and "Disremembered").

Their current lineup consists of Oliver, Connor and Ben as of their 2023 album, Self Similar, which had Damon Waitkus (vocals, acoustic guitar, hammered dulcimer, psaltery, and tongue drum on "Recursed Images" and "After the Incident"), Gabriel Riccio (vocals on "Self Similar"), Deja Indigo Yerger (electric guitar on "Self Similar"), Tom Shad (piccolo bass on "Self Similar"), and Nick Prol (vocals on "Binary").

Related bands

In 2017, avant-prog band Nick Prol and the Proletarians, led by Nick Prol, debuted with its album Loon Attic. This band branched off of The Mercury Tree, as Ben Spees and Connor Reilly are official members, while Connor is present in many of the songs. This band's 2020 album, An Erstwisle Alphabestiary: Book One showcases musicians such as Jack Tickner, Jerry King, Mohadev and Dave Newhouse.

Ventifacts, microtonal folk songwriting duo between Ben Spees and Damon Waitkus from Jack O' The Clock, featuring Connor Reilly as the drummer and Oliver Campbell as the bassist and made his appearance on tracks "Groaning Under the Evidence" and "Dog Day Music", as well as Emily Packard playing the violin and viola, debuted with a self-titled full-length album in September. That album was followed by the Chronic Town EP from 2022, which featured all 3 members of the band and Daimon himself.

Musical style

The band's songs are characterized by the frequent usage of odd-time signatures, mixed meter, polyrhythms, polymeters, counterpoint and looping. Ben's vocals commonly have reverb and delay applied to them. Their microtonal music is mostly in 17edo and it showcases neutral intervals, as well as chromatic movement.

Musical evolution

The band's musical style has evolved over the years, becoming more eclectic with every release, them experimenting with quartertones before becoming fully microtonal.

2007-2009

In this period of time, The Mercury Tree used electronic drums in songs like "Colorfalls" (The Mercury Tree) and "Down the Pipe" (Eerie EP), akin to Ben's previous contributions for mac games' soundtracks, such as Deimos Rising. Most of the songs for this period of time remained mostly alternative, with the occasional usage of mixed meter in tracks like "Lab Rat" (The Mercury Tree) and many of the songs on Eerie EP.

Discography

• The Mercury Tree (2007)
  • Five-Seven EP (2007), a selection of songs from the self-titled LP.
• Eerie EP (2009)
  • Eerie B-Sides (2009)
• Descent EP (2010)
• Pterodactyls (2011)
• Freeze In Phantom Form (2012)
• Family Style EP (2014)
• Countenance (2014)
• Permutations (2016)
• Cryptic Tree EP (2018)
• Spidermilk (2019)
• Self Similar (2023)

External Links

• Bandcamp discography
• The Mercury Tree's YouTube channel
• Promotional Facebook page
• UnTwelve interview (see also: UnTwelve)