Spaghetti Eastern Electro Dub Debuts Live Single 'Kilimanjaro'

For the past four years, four New York musicians have been delighting live audiences with a unique fusion of Jamaican dub, Indian raga, psychedelia, Krautrock, and modal jazz under the banner of Spaghetti Eastern Electro Dub. Now, the quartet is showcasing its explorations with the digital release of "Kilimanjaro," a sprawling 12-minute-plus single recorded at a live performance - a track that will be the centerpiece of their debut album slated for release in March 2025. 

Spaghetti Eastern Electro Dub is a collective improvisational project initiated by NYC & Hudson Valley-based guitarist/keyboardist Sal Cataldi, an off-shoot of his long-running venture, Spaghetti Eastern Music. Cataldi's partners in this collective are bassist/composer Tom "Spontaneous" Semioli, drummer Dirk Drazen, and Dawoud "The Sufi Renegade" Kringle. The latter musician adds an Eastern flavor to the proceedings with a hybrid instrument of his design, a fusion of sitar, cello, and guitar, called the Dautar.

"Kilimanjaro" was recorded at a live performance and live stream event in December 2024 at the Green Kill Art Center in Kingston, N.Y., one of the Hudson Valley's most notable venues for forward-thinking art and music.

This debut track is anchored by bassist Semioli's rock-solid dub-styled thematic riffs, Cataldi's spacey looping, and Drazen's rock-steady drumming. As this collective improvisation progresses, there are subtle evolutions in tempo and tone center as Cataldi and Kringle take turns unfolding melodic themes and solos. Kringle's unique instrument is sometimes bowed, sometimes plucked, and sometimes strummed - creating sounds ranging from Middle Eastern modal to Indian raga to vintage 70s space rock. Kringle and Cataldi's sounds are manipulated with various pedals, including loopers, delays, fuzz tones, ring modulators, harmonizers, envelope filters, and more. Video of the performance can be found here:

Cataldi debuted his solo Spaghetti Eastern Music with the 2016 album, Sketches of Spam, followed by numerous EPs and singles. The New York Times says Cataldi "has a beat unmistakably his own," while Time Out New York praises his "delicate guitar work and the hauntingly moody atmosphere he conjures." Spaghetti Eastern has been called "beautiful and unique" by WFUV's Mixed Bag and "charmingly melodic and off-center" by WFMU. Hudson Valley One dubbed the project "part Sergio Leone fever dream, part Ravi Shankar raga, a whirling dervish of musical creation, a must-see." Chronogram Magazine called his exploratory solo guitar score for the dance piece 2x2x4, "cool, melodic, inspired and transcendent, a wave of sonic warmth and light."

"Spontaneous" is the nombre de musica of Tom Semioli, a New Yorker who not only expertly plays the bass, but writes, blogs and podcasts about what he calls the "king of instruments." Tom learned his craft in the music program at the University of Miami, from a coterie of instructors and alumni, including Jaco Pastorius. A veteran of many bands in New York and the Sunshine State, Tom is the riff meister of Electro Dub, composing the many riffs and harmonies that his associates build upon. He is also the man behind the long-running Know Your Bass Player blog and Notes from An Artist podcast who writings on music have been featured in Bass Player Magazine, No Depression, Huffington Post and many other media

Dawoud "The Renegade Sufi" Kringle is a musical composer, improviser, and multi-instrumentalist. His unique ideas about music inspired/forced him to work with Limulus Musical Instruments to develop the Dautar, something he calls "the love child of guitar, sitar, and cello." He has been described as sounding like "Hans Zimmer and Jimi Hendrix fighting over a beautiful princess from another galaxy," which qualifies him to hang in the company of his fellow Spaghetti Easterners. Dawoud has performed in the U.S. and Europe, produced over 13 solo albums, and composed for film, theater, and dance performances.

Dirk Drazen is a veteran New York City-based musician who, in his own words, "works the 'stix' for this improvisational outfit." He issues a supple and dynamic rhythmic matrix of beats that draw upon jazz, funk, and progressive rock to lay a foundation for "deze cats to strew their mess upon." When the band plays in Manhattan, Dirk sometimes commutes to gigs on a skateboard. He says he prefers this work above all others.

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