Vapor Vespers

The Vapor Vespers is an edge- and button-pushing transcontinental collaboration between acclaimed NYC & Hudson Valley-based multi-instrumentalist Sal Cataldi (aka Spaghetti Eastern Music) and Alaskan playwright, actor, slam poet and sometimes standup Mark Muro. Drawing inspiration from music-powered spoken word icons like John Cooper Clarke, The Last Poets, Lord Buckley, Henry Rollins and beat god Jack Kerouac, and the O.G. of monologues, Ruth Draper, the Vapor Vespers are unwrapping their jazz and ambient flavored brew with Timbuktu, a hallucinatory single now available for digital download and streaming via CD Baby, Spotify and other services (Bad Egg Records, 4003). The single will be followed by a 13-track album, One-Act Sonix, set for release in January 2020. Defying convention, The Vespers’ Bottomless Seafood Surprise is a kind of one-act play by Muro about a woman's expectations for a romantic dinner. at home, seasoned with Cataldi’s atmospheric soundscape of percolating synths, chunky Pagan drums, noises and burning harmonizer guitars. Will they or won't they? Just listen... Cataldi and Muro’s partnership goes back to when they met in their teens in Queens, New York. Here, in the heart of blue-collar New York City, they formed a lifetime friendship and creative bond over a steady diet of Carvel Flying Saucers ice cream sandwiches, Sundew Jungle Juice, Sun Ra, Henry Miller, Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa and the original spoken word recordings of the 50s and 60s from Caedmon Records. A longtime denizen of the New York City and now Hudson Valley/Woodstock music scenes, guitarist/keyboardist Cataldi is most recently known for his current solo project, Spaghetti Eastern Music. Cataldi’s solo venture fuses Eastern beats, Spaghetti Western film soundtrack ambience, Krautrock spaciness and psychedelic and funk/fusion flavored electric guitar instrumentals with gentle acoustic vocal songcraft, straight out of the John Martyn/Nick Drake songbook. Time Out New York writes: “Cataldi’s largely instrumental, Eastern-influenced jams are infused with some delicate guitar work and hauntingly moody atmosphere,” while The New York Times proclaims he has “a beat unmistakably his own.” Called “truly excellent” by The Village Voice, “a jazz virtuoso without the need to prove it” by Aquarian Weekly, “beautiful and unique” by WFUV’s Mixed Bag, “wonderfully melodic and off-center” by WFMU and “part Sergio Leone fever dream, part Ravi Shankar raga, a whirling dervish of musical creation” by Hudson Valley One, Cataldi keeps up a steady schedule of performances at leading venues in the Big Apple and the Hudson Valley. Bronx-born Mark Muro has been a cultural force in Anchorage, Alaska since he moved to the 49th state in the mid-1980s. His short stories and poetry have been published in anthologies including North of Eden and The Anchorage Daily News and he has produced and performed in a series of one-man shows at leading theaters including Cyrano’s and Out North, and also at the annual Alaska One-Minute Play Festival. He has acted in numerous independent films and commercials, performed standup comedy, represented the state of Alaska in The National Poetry Slam and also served as host of the PBS radio show, Stage Talk. His newest one-man show, Bug Boy: Curse of the Ant Queen, premieres this month at Anchorage’s Cyrano’s Theater. Bottomless Seafood Surprise and all the tracks on the forthcoming album were recorded and engineered by Sal Cataldi about the studio aboard his houseboat in Port Washington, Long Island, Houseboat Garlic Knot Studios, and Sonic Garden Studios in Saugerties, New York. The tracks were mastered by Grammy-winning engineer Bob Stander at Parcheesi Studios. See his other site at www.reverbnation.com/cataldisspaghettieasternmusic

Anchorage, AK