Review by Dawoud Kringle
Artist: Spaghetti Eastern Music Title: Drone Girl – the Soundtrack Sessions Format: Digital Album Label: self-produced Genre: Soundtrack
Keyna Wilkins, MFM’s first international member, is a pioneering Australian/British composer-musician. She was one of three finalists for the Australian Art Music Awards for Individual Excellence in 2021 and 2018 (APRA/AMCOS). As an innovative soloist her solo show explores stream-of-consciousness improvisations alongside her composed pieces, often using loop pedal and visual projections and inspired by contemporary human rights issues, astronomical phenomena and philosophy.
She has collaborated with six detained refugees from their prison cells via zoom, victims of Australia’s brutal mandatory refugee detention laws for nine years, on music, poetry and art collaborations. She has performed her solo show around Australia including Phoenix Central Park, MONA, Sydney Women’s International Jazz Festival, Melbourne Digital Concert Hall, Australian Flute Festival and many other venues.
She has released 4 solo albums on piano and flute and 5 ensemble albums. Her works are published by Wirripang and performed internationally. While classically trained in UK, Germany and Sydney Conservatorium, she has branched into jazz, flamenco, live theatre and has studied intuitive conceptual improvisation with Tibetan Buddhist musician Tenzin Cheogyal. www.keynawilkins.com
Continue reading
Music & Video Review by Dawoud Kringle
Spaghetti Eastern Music, the ongoing project led by guitarist/ composer / improviser / producer / polymath / MFM member Sal Cataldi has done it again. This single, titled Blues for a Lost Cosmonaut, is an exploration of emotions evoked by a look back into the infancy of manned space flight.
Cataldi’s guitars glide and dance in and around the landscape he creates with his synthesizers. The piece has a dreamy rubato feel, combined with the haunted F minor tonality, well-balanced combination of timbres, melodic counterpoints, and motif invention. It is as beautiful as a well-tended garden, and as seductive as a courtesan in an opium den.
The video for Blues for a Lost Cosmonaut compliments the music beautifully. It shifts back and forth between a plethora of images from the late 50s – early 60s Soviet space program, fractal art, and clips from what is obviously an old Soviet era science fiction movie (nothing ages faster than science fiction!).
“To me, there isn’t a middle zone between creative paths of improvisation and traditional paths… Musicians deserve to be compensated and deserve a decent environment to play their music.” – Sal Cataldi
In this episode of the MFM Speaks Out, Dawoud Kringle interviews Sal Cataldi. Sal is a guitarist, composer, improviser, producer, a contributor to nysmusic.com, MFM member, and founder of Cataldi Public Relations Inc,”
In this episode, Sal discusses his Spaghetti Eastern Music project, His recent release One Act Sonix with the Vapor Vespers project, his other music projects such as the Hari Karaoke Trio of Doom & Frank’s museum, the nature of 21st century music performance, his experience as a music journalist with nysmusic.com, how he founded Cataldi Public Relations, the Hudson Valley Music scene and musician’s community and how the recent COVID-19 pandemic affected it, and his involvement with MFM.
Artist: Vapor Vespers
Titele: One Act Sonix
Label: Bad Egg Records
Genre: “Triptastic Slam of Storytelling and Genre-Skipping Sounds” – Sal Cataldi
CD Review by Dawoud Kringle
What happens when Sal Cataldi (a New York City / Woodstock / Hudson Valley based multi-instrumentalist who’s known as Spaghetti Eastern Music; and member of MFM) joins forces with Mark Muro (Alaskan actor, poet & playwright)? The result is Vapor Vespers.
