Firecracker is Unwed Sailor’s first Ep, released on September 2, 1998. Along with Johnathon Ford, the founder of the band, David Bazan (Pedro the Lion), Casey Wescott (Fleet Foxes), and Melissa Palladino (Danielson Famile) were musical contributors on this release.
Led by Johnathon Ford since forming in 1998, Unwed Sailor makes primarily instrumental, often bass guitar-driven music that, over a decades-spanning run, has drawn on elements of post-rock, shoegaze, dream pop, and ambient rock to create a uniquely textural and emotionally rich signature sound. The band evolved throughout the 2000s on albums like their 2001 debut full-length The Faithful Anchor and 2006's The White Ox. After a period of relative quiet for most of the 2010s, Unwed Sailor kicked back into gear with 2019's Heavy Age, and steadily released new music from there, leaning into classic shoegaze influence on 2024's finely sculpted Underwater Over There and polishing off both their dreamy hooks and grimy riffs on their 2025 album Cruel Entertainment.