Dizzy Mystics is a local rock-inspired band with funk, jazz, folk and ’70s metal influences.

The band played their first show in September of 2017, after jamming together for a year to refine their style.

Kyle Halldorson, vocalist, guitarist and mandolin player, wrote the songs for their first album years prior to banding forces with Jeff Laird, Alexandre Joyal and Aaron Bacon.

“I had songs in my head, and I didn’t want them to get old, so I got them down,” he says. The band has been working on a more democratic process for songwriting for future music. Halldorson says they have good chemistry.

“The future is going to be more like a mixed bag of writing,” he says.

The band is influenced by Led Zeppelin, Soundgarden, Mastodon, White Denim and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, to name a few. Their Manitoba Music profile reads as follows: “2 cups Psychedelic, 2 cups Progressive, 1 cup Hearty 70’s Metal, 3 tbsp. Jazz, 3 tbsp. Funk, 2 tbsp. Folk, 1 tbsp. Soul, A pinch of Celtic Pepper is optional (Measurements of each ingredient are subject to change for each batch made).”

Halldorson explains that the Celtic influence doesn’t stem from anything in particular.

“I love Celtic music and just the joy that it brings when you see it live and the fun that it invokes,” he says.

He explains that he has always been interested in transposing his guitar technique to a mandolin to experiment.

“I guess if you write any lick and it’s played on a mandolin, it just sounds Celtic,” he says. “It’s really all just like the feel-good, Canadian rock influences in psychedelic music applied to a mandolin that sounds Celtic!”

The band draws strength from the act of blending. "(R)ock music is the spoon that stirs the soup, and no genre (or spice) is out of the question," they write on their Manitoba Music profile.

Although Halldorson wrote and rec-
orded the songs on his own with the help of drummer Aaron Edgar, he explains that the music has evolved with the style of the band’s other members.

“All those songs (have) moulded to their own live entities now with the new guys,” he says.

The band aims to play at many festivals this summer and continue gaining an audience as they prepare to tour.

“It’s all about putting as much work in in the present and then whatever comes at you, comes at you,” Halldorson says.

Published in Volume 72, Number 18 of The Uniter (February 15, 2018)