Los Angeles post-punk duo Death Bells are looking to change things up a bit.
Both Will Canning and Remy Veselis have been aiming to break out of the familiar routine of putting out a full-length every few years and doing extensive touring in between releases. Simultaneously, they’ve also been expanding their musical approach and making their sound more multi-dimensional. Their Take My Spirit Now EP, due out on July 21 via Dais Records, is the product of this, and also gives a glimpse at what to expect from the duo in the future.
Along with breaking out of the routine, Canning and Veselis worked with Colin Knight, Morgan Wright, and Kern Haug, who each handled an aspect of the production. Knight did the recording, while Wright handled the mixing, and Haug did the mastering.
“Going into it, we decided to do an EP just to get out of this cycle of putting out a record every two years,” Canning says. “It’s been really nice to just mix it up and take a different approach with the production. Morgan is a long-time friend of the band, and he runs a record label called Burning Rose with me, so having his take on the songs was really cool. He pushed us towards some interesting electronic elements, so that’s basically that. The songs came pretty organically. We decided to just do four or five tracks, dig in, and do the thing.”
Leading up to the making of the upcoming record, Death Bells did a lot of touring around North America and Europe last year. While they weren’t able to flesh out any ideas during the expedition, they did get to perform in some pretty amazing places.
“The main focus of that tour was supporting the last album Between Here & Everywhere, so we were mostly playing those songs,” Canning says. “We weren’t really writing on the road. We did all the driving ourselves, and it was an amazing time. We got to see a lot of the world,and the shows did very well, but we really ran ourselves down by the end of it. We took a break for a couple of months, and then we started writing that December. My favorite show on the tour would probably be Paris and my favorite city to visit was definitely Budapest.”
When it comes to what he hopes people take from the EP when they give it a listen after it’s released, Canning keeps it simple: “I just hope they like the songs as much as we do.”
Take My Spirit Now is available from Dais Records. Follow Death Bells on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for future updates.
Photo courtesy of Ellen Virgona.
