Spindrift

Spindrift, California’s psychedelic spaghetti western pioneers, have built their career on American mythology and cinematic drama. Appropriating the legacy of Ennio Morricone, The Sons of The Pioneers, and Johnny Western, they make it their own with flavors of The Doors, Joe Meek, and Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra.

The band’s defining moment was singer Kirpatrick Thomas’s 2001 cross-country odyssey as he transplanted from Newark, Delaware to Los Angeles: exploring the west in a furious, music-filled rocket blast, like Lewis and Clark led by Hunter S. Thompson, fueled by the blaring soundtrack to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. When he finally touched down in his new home, he drew from the talent that he found in LA’s psychedelic rock scene to form a new incarnation of the band that would share his vision of a new style of western music.

Over the next few years, the band began touring relentlessly with modern psychedelic luminaries like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Dandy Warhols, The Black Angels, Black Mountain, and Dead Meadow. They churned out several releases, culminating in The Legend of God’s Gun (Tee Pee Records, 2009), the soundtrack to a film they themselves made.

Released by Xemu Records (home to Dead Meadow and the morning after girls), their new record, Classic Soundtracks: Vol. 1, is a showcase for unreleased soundtrack work that the band has done over the years, and delivers some new material as well. Stylistically diverse, the songs range from Bollywood-influenced funk to haunting psych, stripped down noir to dark country, with a good measure of their trademark rousing western thrown in as well. The band makes use of an array of instruments, including guitar, organ, drums, bass, pedal steel, baritone guitar, flute, autoharp, sitar, tablas, and the versatile voices of Thomas and keyboardist Sasha Vallely. Many of the songs have been bolstered by the release or re-release of the films that they were created to score. In some cases, that means short films rendered in full; in others, just snippets of works partially lost or never completed. Look for Spindrift-related pieces from directors Simon Chan, JX Williams, Burke Roberts, Mike Bruce, Rob Bray, and Ward Roberts, and Quentin Tarantino.