The Valley Jumpers

The Valley Jumpers is the love child of 22 year old multi-instrumentalist Brittin Durment,who started recording new songs shortly after his previous project went on indefinite hiatus in 2008.

This trio of young musicians are no strangers to Chicago's local music scene having all been in many different bands, featured on college stations,WGN, & Chicago's own Q101 before they were 20. After much experimentation & genre exploration more & more songs began to come to fruition as the band was formed, with most of them[songs] being created piece by piece with Brittin playing organs,pianos, guitar's and bass in empty apartments,basements, & living rooms. With the addition of a very talented drummer, Eric Sommers-Urrea, & with the help of a few other talented bassist's such as Crayolala's Keith Dunn, the band was able to start playing shows around the chicagoland area & at college's scattered across Illinois.

Currently this eclectic group is working in collaboration with Gravity Studios, run & operated by Doug Mcbride in Wicker Park, to release a 4 song E.P entitled "Hidden Punch." The tracking stage is complete and the songs should be mixed & ready for release within the next several months. With a wide range of influences and a as-of-yet un-released back catalogue, its exciting to see the progression in sound & artistic direction the band has been going towards in the past couple years as Brittin explains...

"Originally this project was a way for me to start recording new ideas, & experimenting with different sounds.Obviously when you go from playing with a full band to recording & writing everything yourself, it inherently changes the songwriting approach and process. Having a background in sound engineering & recording lots of bands, I really embraced the freedom of recording things on my own;no time restraints or watching of the clock, no meticulous abuse of programing drums or alignment to click tracks, oh and of course the room for lots of improvisation...I also found that sometimes "mistakes" can take or lead a song in different directions and inspire in a beautiful way. However after a year and a half, it was great to re-connect with other awesome musicians/friends who could add more dimensions to the songs... now my only problem is we're just releasing material that I was working on a couple years ago; I'm in a different place now then I was both in my life & artistically then, so it'll be interesting to see the future unfold for the group & the fans- we'll grow together."