Spaghetti Eastern Music, the solo project of genre-leaping Hudson Valley/NYC guitarist Sal Cataldi, is returning with a new EP, Drone Girl – the Soundtrack Sessions, featuring selections from the soundtrack of Drone Girl, a new short by filmmaker/choreographer Charles Dennis. Ahead of the full EP arriving on August 15, Cataldi has also released a single titled “Drone Girl Theme (Take 2).”
With Spaghetti Eastern Music, Cataldi traverses three distinct musical styles: acid jazz-fueled electric guitar instrumentals, lush ambient soundscapes, and bare-bones acoustic vocal ballads straight out of the Nick Drake school. Spaghetti Eastern’s debut project — 2016’s Sketches of Spam — made waves with positive reviews. Followed by several acclaimed EPs and singles. Moreover, Cataldi’s work has garnered airplay on leading outlets locally and abroad, including SiriusXM, WFUV’s “Mixed Bag,” WFMU, WKCR-New York, Radio Woodstock, and many others.
For Drone Girl – the Soundtrack Sessions, his latest project, Cataldi collaborated with two notable Woodstock-based musicians: veteran bassist Jeff Keithline and percussionist Mark Peritz. Together, they crafted a multi-layered soundscape with strong melodic themes—one that perfectly complements Drone Girl’s dreamy imagery.
Additionally. the film features African-American dancer/performer Stacey Smith in a duet dance with a flying drone aircraft and follows her as she escapes her Brooklyn basement apartment, grabs a backpack with her drone, and drives upstate to an open field with a view of the Catskill Mountains. After arriving, Smith dons a chest harness with a Go-Pro camera that records her viewpoint of moving with the drone. She dances through the field as the drone tracks her and she tracks the drone while a third camera captures a wider view of their relationship. The 12-minute film represents the tender expression of the relationship between a human and a drone.
How It All Came Together
To work with the short film’s vision, Cataldi utilized a vintage Fender Stratocaster, an Ebow sustainer, a string emulator, reverb, fuzz tone, a harmonizer, phasing, and two delay pedals to conjure complex loops—which he slowed down, sped up, and reversed—to complement Dennis’ narrative. As a result Cataldi’s sounds are accented by Jeff Keithline’s creative and propulsive bass plucking and bowing and Peritz’s deep tribal beats. Moreover, the tracks were recorded live with no overdubs. “Spaghetti Eastern Music’s score for Drone Girl really drives the film and enhances its otherworldly atmosphere,” said Dennis. “Sal, Jeff, and Mark are a magical trio of improvisers who bring a flavor that is both deeply funky and transcendent to the film.”
Dennis, an interdisciplinary artist who creates dance, performance art, and filmworks, is no novice in the art world. Additionally, he worked extensively with theater director Robert Wilson in the 1970s, and in the 1980s, co-founded Performance Space 122 (P.S. 122) and regularly presented solo and group works there for over 25 years. Dennis has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and Franklin Furnace. In 2023, he received a fellowship from Arts Mid-Hudson for his performance work, “Recycle Me,” which also featured an original score by Spaghetti Eastern Music.
Spaghetti Eastern’s new EP, Drone Girl – the Soundtrack Sessions, will be available on August 15 via Bandcamp, Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, and other online shops and streaming services. The lead-off track, “Drone Girl Theme (Take 2),” is currently available everywhere.
Cataldi, Keithline and Peritz will be performing Drone Girl – the Soundtrack Sessions alongside other music at the Opus 40 sculpture park in Saugerties on August 18. For more information, visit here.
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