Vapor Vespers 
Drops Sophomore Album 
Ghosts Before Breakfast

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 (pre-sale April 5) 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.”

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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 actress 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!”

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.”

For more, visit www.vaporvespers.bandcamp.com, Spotify and www.soundcloud.com/vapor-vespers.