Since the release of their debut album, ‘Alpinisms’, School of Seven Bells have done an impressive job in producing some of the finest dream-pop available for your ears. Formed from the remnants of Secret Machines and On! Air! Library!, Benjamin Curtis and Alejandra and Claudia Deheza have created an expansive sound, full of moving lyrics and breezy vocals. Bowlegs caught up Alejandra recently to chat about their forthcoming second album, ‘Disconnect From Desire’. 

Bowlegs: How are you feeling about the upcoming release of ‘Disconnect From Desire’?

Alejandra: I feel really, really excited. I’m really excited obviously because it’s my record, and I’m curious about what people think about it. But also because I’m curious to hear what they think about it in comparison to the other one, because I feel like they’re coming from such different places. And I feel like the song-writing is very different, the lyrics are different, the music, everything. I’m really curious to see how people see the differences. 

Bowlegs: I remember reading an interview with you last year and you sounded like you were really looking forward to moving on from ‘Alpinisms’. Has it been a cathartic process, making this new album?

Alejandra: It’s crazy because this record was such an immediate documenting of what was going on at the time. Things make a lot more sense. I just think because it was something that was happening moment to moment, I didn’t really have the time to think, ‘oh that’s probably a little too much, maybe I should trim that down a little bit’, or ‘do I really want to say all that, do I really want to talk about that?’ So I was really just throwing it all out there as it was happening, without really deciding to censor ourselves. 

Bowlegs: Did the recording process differ from when you were recording ‘Alpinisms’? 

Alejandra: It was mixed at Oceanway, which is the difference. And this time Benjamin produced the whole thing.

Bowlegs: What kind of influences did you all bring to the album?

Alejandra: I’d have to say that the biggest influence that we all had in our minds was this one song, and it’s that song ‘Kiss Them For Me’ by Siouxsie and the Banshees. That song, I feel, was like hugely in our heads for this record. Whether it’s obvious or not, it was definitely like this feeling I wanted. I remember the first time I heard that in a club when I was sixteen or something, and I was like, ‘wow, those drums’. I couldn’t believe it. 

Bowlegs: Is it a song you listened to over and over again while recording, or was it the memory of the song more than anything? 

Alejandra: It was more the memory of the song. I liked the memory and the feeling. We all had a similar experience with that particular song, and it was just when we were going out for the first time, when we were younger, and it was all very new and exciting. And Ii kind of feel you never feel music again in the same way. We just wanted to do that, but in a record. 

Bowlegs: You start touring in June, is that right?

Alejandra: Yeah. We’re doing a few shows in June. We’re doing one in LA and two in New York. We’re doing smaller shows to kind of reintroduce ourselves again to the material world. But we’re actually starting the tour tour in July.

Bowlegs: Is that something you feel you need to do, reintroduce yourself? 

Alejandra: I just think it’s a way to introduce the new record, because we’re playing mainly new songs. 

Bowlegs: Is the touring aspect something you look forward to? 

Alejandra: I love touring. It’s so much fun. It’s a really, really creative time for everyone anyway. We do most of our writing on tour.

Bowlegs: Is that how this album materialised?

Alejandra: Uh-huh, yeah, through touring.

Bowlegs: How does the album translate live? Do you stick pretty closely to the recorded versions or do you leave yourself room for spontaneity?

Alejandra: It’s a little bit of both. I feel like we’re doing a pretty good job translating from the recording to live. I think with ‘Alpinisms’ I remember the way in which it was , and when we started playing the songs live we got a lot louder and a lot more dense. Of course it’s natural; with that first record we were trying to figure out where our sound was. It was a process, it was like an experiment. When we started recording this record and writing this record we knew what we wanted, so it’s going to be very close to the record how we sound live, just because it’s a definite statement.

Bowlegs: Do you feel with this record you have more of a cohesive sound and you’re where you want to be?

Alejandra: Definitely. This is the sound we were looking for and that we had in our heads. We just figured out how to do it. Just playing live made a huge difference, all the touring that we did last year.

Bowlegs: What the essential things you take with you on tour?

Alejandra: You mean like personal things?

Bowlegs: As personal as you want.

Alejandra: Just like books and notebooks, and a computer. You don’t really have a lot of time. You’re in vans or you’re in sound-check. You just kind of move from van to club.

Bowlegs: Do you have any preshow rituals?

Alejandra: I just like to find the YouTube clips that I like, and I play them. It’s actually pretty simple. For the last tour there was just this incredible YouTube clip of Echo and the Bunnymen performing live. It just blows my mind every time I see it and I was playing it before every show.