Acclaimed transcontinental duo Vapor Vespers are back with Ghosts Before Breakfast (Bad Egg Records), their second long-playing release. The follow-up to their critically-acclaimed 2020 debut, One Act Sonix, this 10-track collection of music-powered spoken word will be available via Bandcamp and streaming services including Spotify beginning May 3, 2024.

Vapor Vespers is the brainchild of NYC and Hudson Valley-based multi-instrumentalist/producer Sal Cataldi (aka Spaghetti Eastern Music) and award-winning Alaska playwright, actor, slam poet and sometime standup comic Mark Muro. The pair’s musical and personal relationship dates back to their teen years in Queens, N.Y., where they bonded over their love of boundary-pushing musicians like Sun Ra and Frank Zappa and the recordings of writers and music-powered spoken word icons like Lord Buckley, William Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, The Last Poets and John Cooper Clarke.

The duo’s latest collection ups the ante on the cool grooves, intense guitar riffage, synth textures and the verbal hijinks and narrative absurdity showcased on their debut, something underground radio institution WFMU calls
“a supremely cool fusion of spoken word and progressive sound.” Highlights from the 10-track collection include:

• Sex - Cataldi’s soundtrack is a slow-creep funk/electro modal blues reminiscent of latter-day Jeff Beck, one on which Muro sleepily riffs couplets that illuminate what sex is. “Sex is a big basket of shiny red apples and a good sharp knife… Sex is a time bomb under your seat and a dog sleeping at your feet… Sex made a monkey out of Darwin and a man outta King Kong… It’s how I got here and how I wanna go.” Music video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=63HaAd8f6b0

• Valise - The duo’s audio salute to film noir, a thriller-cum-mystery narrative driven by a funky flatted-5 bass groove, buzzing keys and bickering wah-wah guitars. Here, Muro sounds like Raymond Chandler, narrating the tale of a mysterious suitcase with equally mysterious contents and the femme fatale who may or may not have made off with it. Music video: youtu.be/QajzD76c5fY

• Bent Omelet (DADA #1) - A fatback beat-driven jazzy blues/word salad salute to DADA, the early 20th century movement in art and literature based on deliberate irrationality and negation of traditional artistic values. Think William Burroughs’ cut-ups meeting The Meters in a dark alley of the mind. Music video: youtu.be/QRvzpPBg85U

• Declarations (53 Clues) – An increasingly unsettling orchestral sound collage referencing Zappa’s final work, the Synclavier-driven Civilization Part III, provides the bedding for Muro’s sleepy, paranoic ruminations. “I am the painter of your brain, the dweller behind your eyes…I am a lifetime of bad food and tooth decay.. I am the golden opportunity that lands in your lap and breaks both your legs.”

• Bus – Beautiful spacey cloud music reminiscent of Eno’s Another Green World dresses a narrative about lovers on a bus in the Andes, from their meeting to their last thoughts before they and their transport go over a cliff to be swallowed by “the timeless green landscape.”

• Reverie (Live at Green Kill Gallery) – A looped and intensely layered solo guitar score and a poem about bar-hopping thoughts. Recorded live at a 2021 performance at Green Kill Art Gallery in Kingston, N.Y. Music video/live performance: youtu.be/F3uyB-hrGY4?si=PkViED0Y_iBXBxIs

• You Changed – High-energy funk-jazz of the Ornette Coleman Prime Time/harmolodic variety. Its galloping beat, snappy clavinet accents and dueling lead guitars propel Muro’s caffeinated rant about an artist friend who’s now too cool for school and their friendship. “You used to be nice, you used to be normal, you used to be my friend, then you suddenly changed… You started wearing vinyl pants and blowing kisses to strangers… You called me a sad sirloin burger…You wanted to be interesting, so you rented a wolf, had your elbows pierced, bought a stuffed owl and went to the opera dressed as a mermaid!” Music video: youtu.be/VYec9y2HZ3Y?si=CA-pvKIdxw2a5vVM

The press notices demonstrate how critics, radio DJs and music-lovers are venturing beyond the vanilla mainstream to embrace the Vapor Vespers’ unique fusion of furious sounds, words and humor.

Underground radio institution WFMU called the Vapor Vespers “a supremely cool fusion of spoken word and progressive sound,” while NYSMusic.com praised their “blend of spacey synths, spicy guitar, ethereal drones and deep lyrics, a mesmerizing blend of hazy electro-funk and searing, lyrical poetry that redefine what music can be.” NYC’s Good Times Magazine called the debut disc “a wild, indescribable sonic stew that mixes outrageous lyrics and storytelling with expert musicianship that recalls everyone from Steely Dan to Was (Not Was) to Frank Zappa.” Fresh Underground Podcast labeled it “stunning slam poetry and electro music originality in the tradition of Joe Frank.” Anchorage Daily News said “Cataldi’s music gives Muro’s narratives more urgency, veering between funk-jazz acid trip and graphic novel accompaniment, a collaboration that is something to behold.” Musicians for Musicians called it “colorful and inventive, a perfection of onomatopoeic expression.” Psychedelic Baby Magazine noted its “tripstastic slams of storytelling and genre-skipping sounds” while Radio Spiral called it “as imaginative as it is atmospheric.” KMS Reviews might have said it best: “Push that play button and get ready to float in a sea of sound. It’s an album with a mystical glow that will keep listeners enchanted.”

Tracks from the album have been featured on more than 50 influential radio outlets globally including New York’s WFMU, Radio Free Brooklyn, WVKR/Vassar U, Radio Woodstock, WGXC-FM, SOMA FM, SiriusXM, Radio Spiral, The Fresh Underground Podcast Radio Spiral, Modul 303 and Radio Dark Tunnel (Germany), West Star Radio (UK), Krypton Radio (USA) and Brainvoyager (Netherlands).

A longtime denizen of the New York City and now Hudson Valley/Woodstock music scenes, guitarist/keyboardist Cataldi is most recently known for his solo project, Spaghetti Eastern Music. Here Cataldi 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 relocating 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 including The Bipolar Express, Indistinct Chatter and Not Marketable at theaters including Cyrano’s and Out North, and also at the annual Alaska One-Minute Play Festival. Muro has acted in numerous independent films and commercials, performed standup comedy, represented the state of Alaska in The National Poetry Slam. He also served as host of the PBS radio show, Stage Talk. His newest one-man show, Bug Boy: Curse of the Ant Queen, premiered in November 2019 at Anchorage’s Cyrano’s Theater.

Ghosts Before Breakfast was produced, engineered and mastered by Sal Cataldi about the studio aboard his houseboat in Port Washington, Long Island, Houseboat Garlic Knot Studios, and his Sonic Garden in West Saugerties, New York (1/4 mile from the legendary Big Pink house made famous by The Band).