New single from Gulls incoming!
OILS is the first single from Gulls’ forthcoming album Time Spirals. Building on a practice that has explored ambient textures, dub-informed electronics, and the tactile energy of live instrumentation, Gulls continues to merge improvisation with wild and meticulous studio craft.
As the first turning of Time Spirals, OILS sets the tone for an album that moves in cycles rather than straight lines — balancing low-end architecture with melodic warmth and devotional restraint. It sits between downtempo, leftfield electronics, dub-informed experimentation, and devotional minimalism without settling fully into any one space.
Built around a steady kick drum, a distant trumpet melody, and the melodic pulse of bright electronics intertwined with watery field recordings from the Pacific Northwest, OILS unfolds through a unison guitar-and-bass motif locked in hypnotic circular motion. Accented and harmonized horns punch across the rhythm, adding syncopation and human heat to its dub-leaning foundation.
Performed, looped, and layered from live woodwinds, brass, percussion, guitar, bass, and electronics, the piece grows from physical repetition rather than rigid programming, giving the 70bpm groove its organic propulsion and tonal depth. OILS carries an undercurrent of play across the sound system, unconcerned with strict genre containment or sonic perfection, encouraging the layers to overlap, blur together, and break apart at the seams.
Download Gulls – OILS at Bandcamp
Text by Jesse Munro Johnson