Spaghetti Eastern Music Returns With Two New Singles 'Sweet Home Anywhere' & 'Jungle Blue'

Spaghetti Eastern Music, the solo venture of genre-leaping NYC/Hudson Valley guitarist Sal Cataldi, is returning with two new singles that demonstrate the range of his project, the stripped-down acoustic vocal ballad Sweet Home Anywhere and a tribal beat-driven, blues-inflected electric guitar instrumental Jungle Blue. 

The new tracks are available as digital downloads via Spaghetti Eastern Music's Bandcamp site, and Spotify, iTunes, Amazon and other online shops/streaming services. 

Critics from prestige outlets like The New York Times have heaped praise on Cataldi's work since his debut album under the Spaghetti Eastern Music moniker, Sketches of Spam.  This was a 16-track, 69-minute surf through a slew of contrasting moods. It's largely guitar-driven instrumentals were inspired by the acid funk of 70's Miles, Krautrock, Ennio Morricone's Spaghetti Western movie soundtracks and the icy sound of ECM Records guitar great Terje Rypdal.

These contrasted bare-bones acoustic vocal songs compared by critics to the works of Brit folkers John Martyn and Nick Drake. The discs' acoustic titles included originals like “Wild One” and “Mama Called,” a cover of the Zappa instrumental rarity “Sleep Dirt” and a DADGAD-tuned, ballad paced reinvention of the Beatles' “Ticket to Ride,” one that garnered airplay on SiriusXM, WFUV's Mixed Bag, WFMU, Radio Woodstock and many others.

Sweet Home Anywhere is a delicate DADGAD-tuned ballad, indie-songcraft that highlights the artist's pristine acoustic guitar work, close vocal harmony and emotional lyricism. It's a song that tells a troubled former lover that, though they are no longer together, his door in always open.  

Jungle Blue is a 360-departure from the above, an atmospheric electric instrumental driven by percussive cross-rhythms, dreamy washes of electronics and echoed pianos, a duo of sustained Ebow guitars and the guitarist's always melodic, blues-inflected guitar runs.  Cataldi calls it a cinematic marriage of new beats and electronic sounds with melodies and improvisation that harkens to the British blues boom of the ‘60s.  

The tunes were recorded by Cataldi at his studios in Woodstock, N.Y. and a floating one aboard his houseboat, The Garlic Knot, in Port Washington, N.Y.

The New York Times writes “Cataldi's original instrumentals and acoustic vocal tunes have a beat unmistakably his own” while Time Out New York adds "the largely instrumental, Eastern-influenced jams are infused with some delicate guitar work and hauntingly moody atmosphere." Cataldi and his Spaghetti Eastern has been called “truly excellent” by The Village Voice, “a wild ride” by Radio Woodstock, “beautiful and unique” by WFUV's Mixed Bag, “charmingly melodic and off-center” by WFMU and “a jazz virtuoso without the need to prove it” by Aquarian Weekly.

Almanac Weekly calls Cataldi “a unique voice who can conjure a surprising blend of exploratory fusion, electronica and indie song craft” while NYSMusic adds: “If Walt Disney World's Space Mountain had a secret chill detour, Spaghetti Eastern Music would be the soundtrack.” KMS Reviews calls Spaghetti Eastern Music “pure harmonic bliss” while New York-based MusiciansforMusicians.Org labels it “as beautiful as a well-tended garden and as seductive as a courtesan in an opium den.”

Hudson Valley One calls Cataldi's oeuvre “Part Sergio Leone fever dream, part Ravi Shankar raga, a whirling dervish of musical creation.” Huffington Post applauds the “soaring, searing instrumentals” and “beautiful, quirky songs that have a darkness-in-light straight out of the Nick Drake bag. Simply put, it's the perfect soundtrack for New York City life.” Rolling Stone writer John Swenson, the man who penned the liner notes to Frank Zappa's “Shut Up n Play Yer Guitar,” may have put it best: “He's the hippie guitarist playing to another dimension.” 

In 2020, Cataldi followed his debut album with a trio of acclaimed atmospheric singles, “Her Lemon Peel Raincoat – Because It's Raining,” “Peace Within” and “And This is Their New Hoax,” a COVID-19 musical editorial featuring samples of President Trump's most noted denials to Cataldi's soundpainting guitars and synths. In 2021, he released “Blues for A Lost Cosmonaut,” a much-praised nine-minute plus maxi single, again in the ambient mode and “Solo Guitar Score for 2x2x4.”

The latter EP is the soundtrack for a dance piece recorded live at the Avant-Garde Arama Festival in Woodstock inspired by his work with the guitar orchestra of Rhys Chatham and his love of Fripp and “White Light, White Heat”-era Velvet Underground. Chronogram Magazine called it “cool, melodic, inspired and transcendent, a wave of sonic warmth and light while Psychedelic Baby Magazine labeled it “the perfect sonic tonic for these trouble times.”  

In June 2020, Cataldi returned to the acoustic singer-songwriter mode with the single, “I Believe in Love,” which received significant critical praise and airplay, including promotion as song of the day by a NY artist, a “New York Slice” on WFUV-FM.  In 2022, Spaghetti Eastern release three additional singles, the jazz and metal-infused instrumentals “A Fresh Kill” and “A Scanner Darkly” and another delicate acoustic ballad, “I Believe In Love.”

Cataldi also made more beautiful sounds with “One Act Sonix,” the critically-buzzed about 2020 debut album from his spoken word/music side project, The Vapor Vespers, with noted Alaskan playwright/slam poet Mark Muro.  The duo recently followed this up with two new singles in early 2022, “Sex” and “You Changed.”

Cataldi is also one half of the improvisational and ambient Hudson Valley-based guitar and efx duo, Guitars A Go Go, with Rick Warren.  Their first single, a 12-minute improv opus called “The Volcano Lovers,” was a preview of the bold experimentation featured in their recent CD debut, “Travel Advisory.” 

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