Back in 2004, during a stint with Americorps in Austin, I created about two dozen hip-hop beats under the moniker KidShy. My friends in the program basically made up a ragtag crew building trails and chopping down invasive trees, making $42 a day, and surviving on whatever hustle we had.

There were two guys on our crew who loved hip-hop so much that they would blast beats in our work van. Not long after that, I got the idea to start making my own beats. KidShy is the result of that.

I finally brought some justice to these (Long? Purposely?) forgotten hip-hop experiments from my younger, broke, trail-building days. It feels good to breathe some new life into music that was essentially lost to for a couple of decades.

For the full story on KidShy, including how to moon your boss and get away with it, go here:

www.davewirthmusic.com/blog/behind-the-scenes-commentary-kidshy-how-to-moon-your-boss-and-get-away-with-it

Greatly influenced by both Abul Mogard and Tim Hecker, Dual Portamento is immersive and uncompromising.

The song moves between a difficult calm (really), and a noisy intensity. It starts with ambient drones and soft tremolo textures, letting subtle noises and occasional melodic hints float around. These elements slowly build, creating gradual crescendos that rise from quiet moments to more forceful, cathartic peaks full of noise.

At it's heart, Dual Portamento evolves relentlessly into a bold, undiluted intensity.

When director Maurice Moore and I started to talk about the music for Finding Solace, Maurice posed a significant challenge that I totally accepted: Craft music that could exist independently of the film itself. In essence, I accepted the task to compose a score that would resonate on its own, without the help of the visual and narrative context provided by the film. It was a mighty challenge, and I hope I rose to it.

To achieve the goal, I felt strongly that I needed to delve into the archives of America’s rich cinematic legacy. Throughout the history of film as an artistic medium, the orchestra has served as the primary instrument for creating iconic and memorable film scores. The emotional breadth and range offered by the orchestra surpasses that of any other musical tool available to film composers, and it was clear to me that Finding Solace required that sound.

Finding Solace skirts a line in contemporary independent filmmaking that’s rarely dared: It’s an ingenious mashup of Crash and Seven. There’s outright moments of intense syncronicity that follow with deeply intense horror. It was clear that I had to do music that at least attempted to bridge the two distinctive narrative genres while ensuring a cohesive melodic through-line in the film. If I succeeded or not, that’s certainly a good question! In the end, the score employs orchestra, piano, and an immensely reverberated guitar to express a profoundly tragic family drama, while chilling orchestral effects coalesce to establish an atmosphere filled with tension, darkness, and an overwhelming sense of harrowing intensity.

I had to go for broke with this movie. It needed music that matched the audacity of the story. If I wanted to rise to the challenge Maurice Moore threw at me, I had to go big or go home. The outcome is approximately 65 minutes of richly layered orchestral music. I hope you enjoy.

Reading Notes

1-3 Minute Read | Laptop or Tablet Recommended

Topics and Themes

Introducing Elements, a new ambient & experimental record from Evil Gima.

Over the years of working with Jorge Martinez on Evil Gima releases (and many more recordings as well), I've found it’s extraordinarily rewarding and challenging to make experimental music that means something.

The same is true for the opposite.

It’s easy to make experimental music that means absolutely nothing at all and lacks any merit. To make that kind of experimental music, all we really need to do is to make noise and layer it. In other words, find a sound, layer another sound on top, and voila: Mediocre experimental music.

Jorge and I constantly riff off each other to make something a little bit more inviting. There’s intention behind the sounds, a symmetry that pushes us (and hopefully the listener) into a weirder and weirder place.

We long for a consistency and symmetry in good music and we try to bring it into Evil Gima.

Similarly, we long for a piece of music to force us to sit back in our chairs and whistle, if not bristle, at the scope of it, not unlike the pause after getting a much needed punch to the face. I take particular pride in the fact that one person took the time to write of our previous album Alluvion, that “this is music for an emotionally intense fuck.”

For Elements, we hope to offer you songs of that same caliber, or at least in the realm of a comment like that. We reached to create experimental songs that have an underlying symmetry to them. We wanted to tell you a story. We tried very hard to capture a mood that we don’t often hear from music nowadays.

We reached for magical and at the same time intensely perverse and of a full-goblin mode…. at times incredibly unsettling…. at times completely blown out and followed by the sound of a well-deserved silence.

Jorge and I now offer you Elements, the next iteration of Evil Gima. Thank you so much for taking a moment to read this and for your consideration for listening to our challenging music. We love to make it.

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Reading Notes

1-2 Minute Read | Laptop or Tablet Recommended

Topics and Themes

Play Artful, the new record by The Double Headed Seagulls, releases August 28th, 2025.

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The seeds of the new are planted in the ashes of the old. In the case of Play Artful, the seeds originate from The Double Headed Seagulls' 2011 record Slimline, specifically the numerous, extra cassette tape recordings made during its years-long production process. Digital synthesizers, direct-to-interface guitars, and vibrant real-time feedback were all captured on tape and subsequently forgotten, waiting for the right moment to resurface. They were just begging for a new life beyond their original purpose.

Play Artful's manipulation of cassette fragments, lo-fi electronica, and jazz guitar chord modulation evokes the sounds of Pat Metheny's early self-titled record and Watercolors, as well as Brian Eno's Ambient 4: On Land and Music for Films, Four Tet's Everything Ecstatic, and Radiohead’s landmark 2007 album In Rainbows. This newest album by The Double Headed Seagulls demonstrates how old recordings can be reworked, revamped, and rearranged to create a completely new statement. The result bears a resemblance to the project's earlier work but introduces a more playful and childlike flair. While Slimline was serious and noisy, Play Artful is more propulsive, energetic, and imaginative. It represents a departure in tone and energy, yet remains close to their established core sound.

Play Artful is a fusion of dreamy jazz guitar chords, lo-fi electronica, and lush synthesizers, all combined in a vibrant and captivating manner. It consistently aims to surprise and delight listeners. The vibe evokes the image of creative kids with crayons drawing on the walls, with the parents rolling their eyes but loving every second of it.

Releases August 28th, 2025

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I recently stumbled upon a couple of Christmas songs in my back catalog. They’re quite slow and reminiscent of "The Red House Painters," of the most incredible slowcore bands ever.

For subscribers of Fire, Fire, Red Star Down only.

Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Amazon

Do you know a good deal when you see one?

I hope so. Because this sort of thing only comes around once in a very long time.

$4/Year $5/Year Forever —All Music Past, Present, and Future

Lock in a $4/year $5/year subscription (normally $14/year) to become a member of Fire, Fire, Red Star Down.

That’s a forever price. Like, $4 $5, every year, no matter what.

Includes

• members-only albums

• all records released (39 as of today)

• 30% off merch for as long as you’re a member

• any/all records in the pipeline not yet released, including some big surprises.

• bonus material on each record.

• locked-in price, forever.

• the satisfaction of continually supporting a independent music-nerd in an outrageously sustainable way.

You’ll get access to all music, past, present, and future.

As long as you keep your membership alive, it’ll always be $4/year $5/year, forever. The price will never increase on you.

That’s one hellova deal.

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60% off Discography—All Music From The Past

Get the entire discography for $61 (Full Price: $152). Every album I’ve released, yours.

Includes

• all records released so far (39 as of today)

• you own the records, forever.

Doesn’t include:

• members-only records.

• records released in the future

• early releases.

• the satisfaction of continually supporting a independent music-nerd in an outrageously sustainable way.

That’s also one hellova deal.

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Archive Volume Three album cover, by Grande Valley Auction Incident

Where did this terrible music come from?

I have a rule. Whenever I'm taking things too seriously, I need to poke fun at myself. And here's the way I'm gonna do that: The latest Grande Valley Auction Incident record, Archive Volume Three. This is a compilation of songs from my last year of graduate school, in 2003.

During that final semester. I felt all sorts of confused. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I was done with classical guitar as a potential creative path. Whatever interest I had in academia as a career evaporated. I wanted to get out of town, but I hadn’t graduated yet. I was lonely, misdirected, and totally weirded out by the world. It's little wonder these songs came out of me.

I recently found these songs hiding on a cassette tape in my closet. The discovery shocked me. It wasn't like Christmas morning. Unearthing them sent a shiver up and down my spine. I knew I was in for it, but I had no idea by how much.

I’ll tell you directly: Archive Volume Three contains laughably bad songs. The singing is terribly off. The recording quality is total shit. I captured them by pressing record on a vintage tape recorder and throwing a Hail Mary. The songs make me cringe, hard. Imagine if someone found and published your junior high diary. That level of cringe.

No matter what, we could all use a good laugh…

And yet, I’ve noticed more than a few burdensome external forces invading my thoughts. I sense a weight in the air. The world has weirded me out yet again. I feel completely in danger of taking life way too seriously. I can’t have that. Gotta lighten things up a little bit.

So, I offer these slow-core, lo-fi, piece of shit songs for your amusement. After I got over my initial shock of listening to them, I felt better. I hope you get a huge belly laugh out of them and feel better, too.

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Fractal Magic is the fourth track off of Ambient 2022, Vol. 2.

Ambient 2022 Vol.2: One hour listening experience for work, mental engagement, and concentration. Perfect for study, cooking dinner, drawing, light vice expression, and interesting love-making.

Special thanks: Kirt Bozeman, David Hobizal.

Teleporter is the first track off of Ambient 2022, Vol. 2.

Ambient 2022 Vol.2: One hour listening experience for work, mental engagement, and concentration. Perfect for study, cooking dinner, drawing, light vice expression, and interesting love-making.

Special thanks: Kirt Bozeman, David Hobizal.

Ambient 2022 Vol.2: One hour listening experience for work, mental engagement, and concentration. Perfect for study, cooking dinner, drawing, light vice expression, and interesting love-making.

Special thanks: Kirt Bozeman, David Hobizal.

Stereotactic is the third track off of Ambient 2022, Vol. 1.

Ambient 2022 Vol.1: One hour listening experience for rest, relaxation, and rejuvenation. Perfect for reading, watering plants, small repetitive tasks that need to be finished only by you, and psychedelica.

Special thanks: Kirt Bozeman, David Hobizal.

Memories of Rain is the first track off of Ambient 2022, Vol. 1.

Ambient 2022 Vol.1: One hour listening experience for rest, relaxation, and rejuvenation. Perfect for reading, watering plants, small repetitive tasks that need to be finished only by you, and psychedelica.

Special thanks: Kirt Bozeman, David Hobizal.

Ambient 2022 Vol.1: One hour listening experience for rest, relaxation, and rejuvenation. Perfect for reading, watering plants, small repetitive tasks that need to be finished only by you, and psychedelica.

Special thanks: Kirt Bozeman, David Hobizal.

The Place She Dwells is a full-length feature film from Motivate Pictures, starring Sarah Niarkos and directed by Maurice Moore.

In the film, Rachel (Sarah Niarkos) suffers deep trauma after a horrific event tears her life apart. Refusing to go outside, she depends upon the efforts of Detective Pierce (Maurice Moore) to solve the crime that served as the catalyst of her distress and assure her future well-being. The lines between illusion and reality begin to blur as Rachael battles with her demons, home alone, while all those who occasionally visit don't have a clue how to help.

The Place She Dwells is a cunningly well-executed indie-thriller that demonstrates the dark depths we sometimes go to, even if we don't have a clue as to how to climb out of it. While this film looks squarely and soberly at the personal effects of trauma, it ultimately showcases the resiliance of the human spirit in times of immense duress and adversity.

Maurice Moore and Dave Wirth worked closely together on the music for The Place She Dwells. Equal parts layered Eurorack synthsizer sound design and felt piano with strings, the soundtrack plays to Sarah Niarkos' gutsy, deep performance as a woman who routinely tries to escape the immense grief and terror that threatens to swallow her.