While Mock Sun splintered after releasing their final full-length in May, the pieces themselves did anything but fall silent. Singer/keyboardist Jami Kali formed Kali Ra with fellow local musician Ray Novitski while her three former band mates — Mark Dimirco, DJ Tasselmyer and Mark Wohl — stuck together and rechristened themselves Mind Choir.
According to Wohl, who played guitar in Mock Sun, the new project has a “bigger, fuller sound.” He mostly covers bass and synth in Mind Choir, but the band’s members don’t have defined roles; instrumentation is handled on a song-by-song basis, with the only constant being a the dual vocal duties shouldered by Dimirco and Tasselmyer.
“That’s a whole lot of fun,” Tasselmyer said. “We’ve all sang together privately for many hours on end but being able to do it live I think is going to be a pretty fun experience for all of us. It keeps us different, it keeps us fresh and exciting.”
Their first live experience will occur 8 p.m. Oct. 15 at Downtown Arts, 47 N. Franklin St., Wilkes-Barre, at a free, all ages show that also features Down to Six and Doghouse Charlie & the Buck Knife. Wohl said the progress with the Mind Choir live show is about the same as it is with the Mind Choir album: good, different and getting better.
“We’re about halfway through a new album, we have a pretty decent live set worked out already, but as far as what we have all together it’s probably about an hour’s worth of music,” Wohl said. “The album, we’ll probably be done with that in springtime, but it’s all all new songs, all new music. It’s a big change from everything else we were doing.”
The changes aren’t over yet for Mind Choir. The band is seeking a fourth member — someone who’s also a multi-instrumentalist and can start working with them quickly enough to add another voice to their debut full-length writing process. The musician who steps into the band will join a unit that’s been playing music together in some form or another for around a decade, but that doesn’t mean the atmosphere is unwelcoming. The dudes in Mind Choir are just looked for someone to groove with.
“It’s great because we are so compatible and it’s fun to try and craft all this composure into a deeply relatable groove that’s seriously invested in a lot of friendship to deliver a reference for friends and anybody who wants to listen,” Tasselmyer said.
For more information, visit Mind Choir at Facebook.com/MindChoir.
