The Double Headed Seagulls – Play Artful – EP Review

Full disclosure…even though this would technically be my first time reviewing the music of The Double Headed Seagulls, it would be far from the first time I’ve reviewed the music of the man behind it all, Mr. Dave Wirth.  While it’s not something that comes across my desk each and every day, I’ve technically been listening to his music in a variety of forms since sleepingbagstudios was about a year & a half old, and I’ve genuinely cherished it for just as long.  Whether it’s been writing about or playing it on the ol’ SBS Podcast – this dude has been making music that’s been on my personal soundtrack for quite some time now, and I’m grateful for that.  Dave’s also what you’d call a proud, perpetual student of his craft, and one of those folks that’s always looking to be hit where it hurts when it comes to the feedback I provide.  Which, to be fair, you regular readers know that no one directly needs to ask for – I always say what I want to say, however I wanna say…always have, always will.  It just so happens that I tend to enjoy what this dude does for the most part, so he’s generally escaped my wrath throughout the years.  I think it’s basically crazy that this is the third project name I’ve reviewed his music under, which doesn’t count his solo work…so that’s four names you’ve gotta know in order to be able to track him down online and THAT is insane in today’s world for sure…but sound-wise, he’s always created stuff I’ve been interested in and that remains to be true here in the case of The Double Headed Seagulls.  What’s more true than anything else dear readers, dear friends, is that there can be no mistakes when there are no rules.  Sure things will or won’t be accessible based on the decisions someone makes in how they go about creating this or that…but that’s really all there is to comment on when you do your own thing.

So here goes anyway Dave…hope this helps.

With the warm digital glow of “Full Oxford” starting out the EP, I immediately felt like this was going to work out well for The Double Headed Seagulls in its debut.  The low-end that enters into the peaceful serenity is more than noticeable to the point where I suppose a few listeners might find it to be a little jarring when it first shows up, but I think that after you give “Full Oxford” a spin or two, you welcome it.  You’ll spend the opening two minutes in this strange sound-bath of sorts, which essentially serves as the audible amuse-bouche, before The Double Headed Seagulls begins to expand this first idea in the most delightful of ways as you head past the two minute mark into modulating frequencies and malleable sound.  You get the sense that change is coming, which will be welcome for those that were getting a little antsy I suppose.  Honestly, to me, “Full Oxford” felt akin to hearing a great story unfold – I don’t want anyone to rush those situations, so personally I was more than pleased to listen to the opening couple of minutes help build this song’s character and establish its presence.  That being said, hearing how it goes on to morph itself anew was absolutely fantastic…that’s when I guess you’d feel like it was almost difficult to go backwards from there.  Thankfully, that’s not how time, or songs work…we move forward, and the adventure of “Full Oxford” continued to get more and more interesting as it played.  As you trip into its third minute, it’s like you’ve become untethered to float around blissfully in the ether.  When that low-end comes back in minute four, it’s like the warm hug you always wanted to get, and it envelops you entirely as the music supplies a series of enchanting complements along the way.  It all feels new, exploratory, and absolutely beautiful…and by the time it ends, you’ll wish it would never stop.  The amount of work that’s been put in to make this opening song flow so fluidly is absolutely staggering.

What do they call those things in school…when you’re like…supposed to be familiar with something before you dive into something else…or like…at least it helps?  Prerequisites?  Is that the word I’m looking for?  The press release gives you insights into the inspirations for a lot of what you’ll hear on this EP…stuff like Brian Eno, Radiohead, and Four Tet for example…all names I’m intensely familiar with and have celebrated throughout the years on my own playlists over here.  Four Tet alone probably managed to shift my entire musical palette at one point in time long ago.  Anyhow.  I wouldn’t say you NEED to know all those names in order to enjoy what The Double Headed Seagulls is creating – but yes, it helps.  As I listened to the cleverly interlaced percussion of the record’s title track, “Play Artful,” it was like I could hear how each of those influences played a role in paving the way for The Double Headed Seagulls to exist today.  “Play Artful” feels playful…like reconnecting with the joy of discovery and what that’s like to experience when you’re listening to music.  It’s not a moment to take things too seriously, you know what I mean?  Don’t mistake that for a lack of craft…that’s not at all what I’m saying.  What I think I’m getting at more than anything else, is that the music of Mr. Wirth has often come with the weight of heavy emotional elements to it, and there’s something about “Play Artful” that really feels like he was much more focused on just having a moment where he could leave all that behind for a minute or two.  And heck – couldn’t we ALL stand to feel that way for a bit?  When I started to think about it, I wanted to make “Play Artful” my personal anthem for the year…a direct affront to all the bullshit we’ve all been forced to endure through the corruption & erosion of our politics in the modern era.  “Play Artful” gives you the opportunity to close your eyes and reconnect with simpler times, where the joys of finding new music you love, the beauty of the sun above, and the potential of every day was as exciting as it has ever been.  We might not be able to physically go back there anymore, but songs like this can transport you.

You want raw honesty Mr. Wirth?  Here’s some for ya – what’s the point of doing ANYTHING for a minute and twenty-six seconds?  Not just music…I’m talking ANYTHING in life, though I’m more than fine with declaring I’ve always been at war with shorter songs.  I certainly understand all too well what their place in today’s society would be with our ever-disappearing attention spans & all…but I kinda feel like it’s our collective job to rebel against that.  Now…do I like what there is to be heard on “One Pot Screamer?”  Sure!  Does that mean I’m in favor of its appearance in this lineup?  No!  Though to be clear, I’m not ever going to be completely opposed to hearing something I enjoy, no matter how short it is.  Plenty of those influential names we pointed out earlier on in this review all have shorter tracks of their own…it’s a thing…don’t get me wrong, I’m just complaining like an old man on the porch yelling at the state of the world.  Even “Play Artful” was like, right on the borderline of what I’d consider to be a worthwhile venture.  I mean…you should SEE some of the effort that folks like Dave pour into the making of “One Pot Screamer!”  You’d likely assume that a shorter song directly equates to having to spend a whole lot less time twisting dials and knobs to get everything where it needs to be, but more often than not, they’ll end up spending more time in pursuit of perfecting something that’s even shorter than the male orgasm…and that ain’t right, is it?  Shouldn’t we want music to be longer than that?  Shouldn’t it have taken you longer to listen to “One Pot Screamer” than it just did to read about it here?  No issues with what I’m hearing…production-wise, it sounds good…but at 1:26 in total length, it’s also really damn hard to argue that there’s anything so significant to be found here that it’d bring you running back for another repeat too.  “One Pot Screamer” is a quality cut for the length it provides I guess – that’s about the most I can say to support it, and even that seems like it’s as positive as I can be.  As I’ve said many times in the past, if song-length is all you’ve left a critic to pick on, you’re doin’ A-OK.

Alright…rant over…I think I got that outta my system…for now.  “Doss Money” is the final track on The Double Headed Seagulls Play Artful EP, and I’d say this is likely more representative of what I assumed the record would have sounded like, long before I pushed play.  “Doss Money” is like a somewhat logical progression from where we left off with Dave Wirth’s solo music…so this kinda makes sense to me and my ears.  That being said, I think “Doss Money” is probably the most mood-dependent track on the EP, as in, it might not always be the track you’re looking to listen to the most in this particular set of songs.  Again, I’m not opposed to it, and I’d argue that after about four minutes of floating around in a bubble, you finally land with a minute & change left to spare that will reveal all the most significant highlights that there are to be found within “Doss Money” – but overall, I enjoyed it.  This is one of those sit up close and listen, textural & sensory types of songs for the most part…bending notes, resonance and such…more based on how the music moves you, as opposed to the music itself moving in a more tangible way, if that makes any sense to ya.  We’re not so far off the deep end that “Doss Money” would play like a Robert Fripp experiment into Frippertronics, whereby he’ll play one note and let it ring for a half hour while he fiddles with the knobs and dials…nothing that extreme here at all.  I’d probably argue that “Doss Money” is more like what it’s like to hear the art of evolution in real time.  I’m not suggesting that it’s not rehearsed or doesn’t move with purpose – I absolutely think it checks both of those boxes.  I suppose what I’m saying is that “Doss Money” feels gradual and organic, once again unfolding like a great story does, without feeling like it needs to gloss over any chapters along the way.  And while like those great stories we know of, this final cut saves its largest doses of potency and impact for its last act, “Doss Money” ends up developing at a pace that takes a surgeon’s precision & patience, and delivers a conclusion to this EP that will certainly stimulate the curiosity required for you to want to spin it again.

Spotify this EP by The Double Headed Seagulls, or check it out at Apple Music by following this link here:  https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/thedoubleheadedseagulls/play-artful

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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Through fifteen-plus minutes of saturated ambient textures, Wicked Cities From A Distance disseminates a comprehensive and dynamically intense soundscape on "Lodern", a sprawling single replete with sustained distortions and drones of celestial frequencies. WCFAD is the work of USA-based musician Dave Wirth, and this impressive single is released by the Austin, Texas-label Fire, Fire, Red Star Down! It creates a warm environment for the listener, but not an unchallenging one, lightly pressing at the seams of its semiliquid constitution with colourful flourishes. 

Have you ever wondered how the most perfect music falls in your lap at just the right moment?

Kin Leonn, a UK-based ambient and electronic music producer, and his music smoothly nestled themselves into my headphones this summer. I needed it, too.

I learned of Leonn from his work on the film The Breaking Ice. The movie follows three adults in their early 20's, living in contemporary northern China. Each character forms a deeper friendship with the others, while simultaneously, all of them work through their past traumas. It's billed as a bittersweet romantic drama, and it delivers.

The Breaking Ice forced itself onto my list of movies that I will watch twice. It has a solidity to it that I appreciate from good, independent movies. Besides, all I needed was to hear just a few seconds of Kin Leonn's musical score to know that this movie would slay.

I've since come to admire Kin Leonn’s work on a much deeper level. He has a way of creating music that surprises me, pushes me, and haunts my edge every time. I believe that his music effortlessly incorporates a wide and surprising degree of contrasts.

There are several techniques he uses to create this contrast in his music. And, I might do a deep-dive on that in the future. For now, I want to go deeper on how Leonn’s deliberate use of contrast in his music influenced the process I had on Lodern, the most recent release from Wicked Cities From A Distance. I also want to talk a little shop about Eurorack synthesizers.

Boring Synth Pads

In the past, I created a lot of ambient pads and soundscapes, droning out for dozens of minutes. The trouble appears when ambient music dangerously veers towards sameness, and slaps the listener with boredom. Drones can feel a little dumb, repetitive, numbing, and perhaps overdone.

This was why I felt so relieved to hear Kin Leonn’s work. It forced me to realize how important it is to think about variety, to insert some conflict inside of a song. Nothing wrong with having a little fight in you.

Discovering Leonn’s work compelled a deeper awareness of composing music that surprises and delights. I definitely attempted that with Lodern.

Creating Variety With Just Two Notes

Lodern has two notes: A root and a major third. It started as a simple drone piece. But this focus on contrast haunted me:

How on earth do I make a 15 minute long song interesting when it's just two notes, total?

To answer this, I need to nerd out about modular synthesizers. Fans of Eurorack are gonna love this part.

Granular Synthesis via Morphagene and Nebulae

The bulk of Lodern was created from two Eurorack modules, the Make Noise Morphagene and the Qu-Bit Nebulae. Both of these modules accept recorded audio and turn it into loops. Then, they can mangle those loops in so many wonderful ways. John Lennon would have flipped his wig had he had access to these two modules!

On the Morphagene, I had a piano loop running backwards. Using control voltage, I was able to change where the sound played inside of the loop (SLIDE on the Morphagene). Further, I CV’d (short for control voltage) the size of the loop (GENE SIZE), and I also CV’d the MORPH knob on the Morphagene. This formed a dynamic loop, one that changes, a lot.

The output of the Morphagene took flight after getting patched into a Hologram Microcosm with the MIX all the way up. I fiddled a lot with the Microcosm during the recording (TIME, ACTIVITY, and REPEATS). This part sounds pretty mellow just on it’s own:

Make Noise Morphagene

On the Nebulae, using a similar piano recording but played in mono, I found a single section of the loop that I liked and froze it by turning the SIZE knob all the way down while keeping the START knob static. From there, I used my fingers to manually adjust the DENSITY, BLEND, PITCH, and OVERLAP controls.

The output of the Nebulae took on a very intense sound after I violently shoved it into a distortion pedal by DOD called the Gunslinger (Shoutout to Jerry Daniels for the pedal). This noisy loop dominates the dead center of the stereo field throughout the piece. During the mixing stage, I paired it with an EastWest Spaces reverb, a pretty slick convolution reverb, just to give it a little more breath:

Qu-Bit Nebulae

These ideas were patched through to three separate tracks on my iD44 interface, and then captured in one take… One big, long, 15 minute take.

Adding Thickening Agents

I needed something to anchor the droney loops, something I could stand on with some certainty. I plugged a triangle wave output from the Pittsburgh Modular SV-1b into the filter section of the same module. I then took the lowpass filter out to the mixer. In one take, I opened the filter to get more volume when the song needed it:

Pittsburgh Modular SV-1b

Finally, I loaded up an ensemble string patch from EastWest's Hollywood Strings 2. I voiced a simple chord and mercilessly programmed it to repeat endlessly. If you've worked with orchestral samples, you know that the "sustained" sounds make interesting drones. Why? Players gotta stop at some point! The post production audio engineers who work on these sample libraries are often tasked with looping the end and beginning of a patch to create a sustained sound:

Aquiring More Contrast and Conflict

As I mentioned before, I do love long stretches of sound. But, drones need contrast to whack the livin’ hell out of a listener. I had to find places where sound could jostle things out of the ordinary.

A very good friend of mine Eddy Hobizal, who’s music you ought to check out, graciously allowed me to borrow his Fender Rhodes. I was able to plug that bad boy straight into the Hologram Microcosm. Without too much fussing about, I could play all sorts of chords and the Microcosm would throw everything back to me in a nice, twinkling way. An exemplar contrast to the lower foundational harmony.

Finally, I added some nature sounds. Why the hell not? Ambient musicians love nature sounds. Classic. Like a duck to water. Ha!

The entire session looks like this in Ableton Live:

View fullsize

Lodern in Ableton Live 12

Lodern in it's Entirety

Overall, I tried to make the elements of Lodern subtly contradict the next. I wanted each solitary minute to sound a tiny bit different than the previous. Sometimes the keyboard sounds would drift casually into the background, or lift up in the higher registers, or tinker with different harmony. Sometimes, the stereo field would hinge from balanced to dangerously out-of-phase. Sometimes, the thickening agents would just wreak a fever pitch of intensity.

I didn’t know what direction this music could take when I first started working on it.

My August this year (2024) held a plenitude of change. For one, I bought a new car. Having AC felt incredible as I had been without for about 7 years. I could actually drive places without having to bathe in my own sweat. I kept on getting the nudge to write and I began doing it. I decided to get new photos taken for my sites. And, Autumn felt closer than ever.

And once that change started happening, it manifested itself into Lodern. I ended up composing in that in-between place where I hadn't yet changed into something new.

I knew I had to pivot from old Dave to new Dave, as it happens from time-to-time. Lodern is music of that transformation, but specifically the space in-between, that liminal space, where we haven't yet figured out what's going on. Where we haven’t really finished the metamorphosis. That space has intensity. A good friend of mine said it's like taking a Polaroid and having to wait to see the picture clearly, later.

All I gotta say now? My-oh-my, thank god it's fall in Austin. That's a polaroid I've definitely been pining for.

Lodern cover art, by Wicked Cities From A Distance

The old kicks the bucket. The new catapaults itself into being. An everlasting cycle. Rinse and repeat. Ever changing and always occuring. Life, death, restated.

The gap between death and rebirth is known as the liminal space. This space occupies a poetic place in storytelling. Imagine a limbo place where twilight, awkwardness, and risk form the lay of the land. A bardo that underscores the contrast between the old and the new. An initiation that compels a clear look at the past as well as energizing the will to jump bravely into the future.

Everyone enters the liminal space. It happens over and over again. All of us come back renewed afterwords. It's a rite of purification. Problems consumed by that inferno never return with as much power as they once had. We move on, relieved yet vaugely aware that this dance will happen many, many more times in our lives.

Lodern (coming from the old German verb “to blaze”) by Wicked Cities From A Distance, is music of that transformation.

Lodern displays an astonishing magnitude of variety, contrast, rhythm, and thickness without modifying the fundamental harmony. At moments, there dwells a deeply-embedded chaos. One sound burning itself up only to get replaced with something new. A death of the old and the sprouting of the new.

Like the liminal space, Lodern holds contrast. A narrow mono signal contrasting with a wide stereo relief. Long-held drones contrasting with a spirited loop run through a distortion pedal. A triangle wave fundamental contrasting with a pitch-shifted Fender Rhodes. Time-based storytelling that plays with the richness of timbre.

Lodern invites a listener to stir the pot. It encourages full participation, staring with a clear consciousness at the coming transformation in this world, eyes-wide-the-fuck-open.

Inspired by the relentless change in the modern era, Lodern invites you to suspend time, enter the liminal space, and exit a little wiser.

Directed by Jorge Martinez:

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“Listening to Evil Gima’s Alluvion is a singular experience. Its implacable currents of sound pull from two worlds. The first is a place mythic and terribly old, an ancient corridor where monsters lurk with the unknowable thing inside you. The other is an echo of our own voices, captured from some unimaginable future; deranged and waiting. It’s the only music I have ever heard that conjures the cosmic terror/wonder of the world unknown.

Evil Gima and Alluvion are a genre unto themselves, a separate universe from the familiar and predictable undulations of horror than can only speak to the surface of things. Alluvion peels you open and seizes that unfathomable reality within... then sets it churning.

Rejoice, human. Music is not dead. And you are called to obliteration.”

— Kirt Bozeman

In 2021, I purchased my first Eurorack synthesizer. The obsession with the quality of analog sound took hold very quickly. This album of sketches and tests came directly from experimenting with the synthesizers on the Eurorack. I doubt I'll ever buy another digital synth plugin again...

Become a subscriber to my Bandcamp and get this album along with more than 30 others

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Album cover is a public domain photograph of the flutist John Finn, ca 1923. The original is located here: www.loc.gov/resource/musdcmphot.a0169.0

Auger In’s first record is all about post rock improvisation at it's best: Raw, layered, textured guitars provide the atmosphere while pulsating and energetic drums provide the pulse of the music. The Human Sea is like a drummer being told to show off while he/she is playing in a cloud, and the cloud changes form to match his/her playing. The contrast is surprising!

The Human Sea features Cale Parks, solo artist and drummer of the band Aloha, and Dave Wirth, film composer and guitarist. Originally recorded in 2001, and released on January 21st, 2021.

Evil Gima's ulu is a tour-de-force in ambient experimental sound. The songs themselves have no melody, no harmony (Aak And Quack excepted), and in many cases no sound that is recognizable. It was created using a number of different sound design modules and hyped to sound good at 85dB.

This isn't your suger-coated candy pop, feel good, I'm-the-king-of-the-world type of music. It's an adventure for those sonic searchers that are willing to listen to music with scruity and stoicism. Are you one of the few and proud?

Library Of Congress. Photoduplication Service, photographer. Chamber Music Festival. Washington D.C, 1970. Photograph. www.loc.gov/item/2017646184/

Now Available for Fire Fire Red Star Down! Subscribers Only: Synthesizer Sketches 2020-2017

I love experimenting with sound, and around 2017 I got super interested in understanding synths. The best way to get my brain wrapped around them? Tests!

All tests were presented by date, in reverse chronological order (aka from the most interesting to shittiest). No guarantees for quality! Some of these tests are embarassing, especially if I had the heart to listen closely.

Plese enjoy these songs as well as my embarassment of them!

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Photo credits:

Library Of Congress. Photoduplication Service, photographer. Chamber Music Festival. Washington D.C, 1970. Photograph. www.loc.gov/item/2017646184/

Slimline feels exactly what it's like to be in your own mind, totally aware of it, and not giving a damn whether or not anyone actually cares about it. You are deeply into your solitude, and that's all.

Musically, Slimline is a relatively noisy album but an ultimately human listen. Elements of IDM, experimental, ambient, big beats (at times), supremely layered guitars, and intensely personal.

For optimal listening, allow yourself to be over-caffeinated after the sun goes down. It's best to be around people, so go to a coffee shop that's open 24 hours and enjoy the ambiance.

Suggested activities: Write in a journal, do some programming, enjoy the process of doing some intensely detailed art. Completely ignore every other person around.

BONUS: Included is a PDF of the original name of the Double Headed Seagulls: The Arms Race. This was a document that I planned upon putting on a website somewhere, but just never happened (until now!).

Deep, dark, and nightmarish, IT\AM is sure to enthrall you with an intense wall of sound and epic piano. Checkit!