Ducks & Drakes EP (Limited Ed Reissue) 12″

Motivated by the self-imposed challenge of “making something that sounded bigger even though the space I had to record and mix them was much smaller than what I had previously,” the songs see Seamus use more electronics, bass and drum machines among other tools. Over a finger-picked acoustic guitar phrase and a gently warping electronic beat, the title track features such varied ornamentation as Seamus’s first ever attempt at playing saxophone on a record and the dying wheezy whirr of his old washing machine as it completes its farewell cycle. There are hints of Smog about ‘Holyhead’, a woozy sea shanty set to queasy piano and banjo charting strange encounters on the evocative ferry journey from Holyhead to Dublin. Lasting over ten minutes and taking up the entirety of the record’s B-side, ‘A Mile Beneath The Broken Heart of London Town’ is a kaleidoscopic reflection on “searching for somewhere to call home,” melding what began as three separate compositions into a single dreamy, beautiful, haunting whole.