Dirty Spells

Describe Dirty Spells in three words.

Ryan Betts: Argento Scott Kubrick


The new video for “Hyperböl” premiered last month and you have described it as “creepy.” What kind of creepy things should we be expecting?

RB: Skulls, data-moshing, mycelium, implants, fascism, clandestine mad science, and the unsettling sensation that you're being watched at all times, everywhere you go. And our faces.


How does the video tie in to the song?

RB: Everywhere you go you're being tracked by security cameras, cell-towers, satellite positioning, and microphone echo nets. That sounds like a bit of hyperbole, right? Just do a search for “predpol” and take a trip down the rabbit hole. The song and the video are basically taking a nervous perspective on surveillance. We gave my brother, Graeme, that brief for the video and he pretty much nailed it. He used to be Dirty Spells’ saxophonist in our old line-up, so he gets the wavelength we’re on.


Dirty Spells as a 3-piece playing filmic post-rock is pretty different from the 7-piece garage psych-rock band that produced Greetings from Hangover City. Can you tell us more about the transformation of the group?

RB: Hmm. That’s actually a bit of a long and boring story. So, here it is.

Right after Sled Island in 2012, the 7-piece version of the band started to dissipate. We’d only formed in February, and by July people had gotten busy with other projects. The nail in the coffin for that line up was really Greg Pothier (guitarist) deciding to move to Portland. Eric Campbell (from The Dirt) was our second guitarist at the time and he's also got that wild psych bent in his playing, but Greg wrote a lot of the songs on the first album. The garage psych influence on the melodies really moved down to Portland with Greg. You can still hear a bit of garage psych influence in the rhythm especially on a song like “Hyperböl”, though.

Before Greg left, we laid down all the old tracks as a 5-piece live off the floor in our jam space and released it as a full-length demo called (untitled). On those recordings, you can actually hear the beginnings of a couple of tracks from Teeth – “Bleaker” and “Causeway Cannibal” – short instrumental interludes we used to play during tuning breaks.

Those recordings were supposed to be it for the band, really. I mean, what can you do with drums, bass and a violin, right? We couldn't really create the same psychedelic wall of sound we did as a seven piece -- the volume and the madness just wasn't there. Or so we thought. But we were idle musicians, so we figured there was no harm in heading into the space to jam. Eventually, some new sounds started to shake out and we realized that the violin, bass and drums combination has a lot of space to work with. It lets you be moodier.

By the summer of 2013 we’d turned “Bleaker” and “Causeway Cannibal” into full tracks and Emily was starting to really take charge as basically a combination of the band’s lead vocalist and lead guitarist. Then I went to Europe for a month, came back, and Doug and Emily had written another two tracks. The first time I heard their bedroom demos was on my phone standing outside The Black Lodge. I think I’d gone straight there from the airport. I was jetlagged and a little sauced, but they sounded great. The drums just all fell into place after that. And then the final missing piece was really having a mind meld with Felix Fung. He helped us find our footing in a big way during the week we spent recording Teeth at Little Red Sounds. That man has the gift.

Emily Bach: Also, I started to collect pedals. And there was suddenly sonic room to get weird with.

RB: So, all that happened and out the other side popped a filmic post-rock 3-piece.


I am an absolute sucker for anything that resembles dark, cinematic score-like music, which is why I love Dirty Spells’ latest record, Teeth. Do you guys have a specific movie or scene do you imagine soundtrack-ing when writing music?

RB: Why thank you. We used to play along to Koyaanisqatsi a lot. While we were recording the album, we were watching a lot of movies projected on the wall: The Big Lebowski, Withnail and I, Blade Runner, Koyaanisqatsi. Recently, we've been influenced by watching things like Fata Morgana and Under The Skin. I don't think any of us have seen it yet, but I get this sinking feeling that the new Mad Max is going to influence our new batch of songs (correction: Doug saw it on opening night and says it’s one of the best films he’s ever seen). And I’m sure that the year or so I spent watching Apocalypse Now on a loop had some kind of impact on me that I’m not even aware of. A fish doesn’t know it’s wet.


In general, Dirty Spells has gotten a lot darker – the record name, the sound, the album art. Did anything in particular trigger this change?

RB: It just happened. Stripping down to a three-piece really forced us to find a sound, and I guess there’s just enough wrong with all three of us that we gravitated towards being dark and moody.

As for the name, I was sitting there one night -- I think it was July 4th, actually -- watching an old interview with Henry Wallace and for some reason the interviewer’s grin jumped out at me and screamed “TEETH.” I immediately texted Doug and Emily and tried to convince them to change the band name to TEETH, but we compromised on using it for the album.

For the art, we’d always had a bit of a skull motif going. Our first run of t-shirts was a skull which, coincidentally, had teeth that spelled out Dirty Spells. Then, one day Emily was looking for album art options and she landed on Peter Ricq’s skull piece. She showed it to Doug and I, and we both immediately said “YES.” I don’t think any of us realized how well it all fit together. But we were sure we wanted it.

Kind of hilarious to describe it, because it probably sounds really intentional or invented as a story. But no, just dumb luck. Gut. Kismet. And the sound and style of the band is still moving. We’ve been sending each other a lot of tracks from ESG, Deerhoof, Beak>, Spaceart & LCD Soundsytem…oh, and Anthrax. So the next album might be a bit more “Blade Runner Disco” than “Sci-fi Horror Film.” I want to call it Nail House. But we’ll see. First, we need to write it.


The first track on Teeth is called “Causeway Cannibal.” Is this, by chance, referring to the incident with Ronald Poppo and Rudy Eugene in Miami? If yes, why’d you pick this incident to write a song about?

RB: It is. And we chose it because it was the most absolutely insane thing that had happened the week that we wrote the initial seed of the song. That shit was bananas. The song was actually originally named “コーズウェイの食人鬼.”


“Hyperböl” is the only track on Teeth with vocals. How would you describe the emotional process in terms of producing a song with and without lyrics?

RB: I leave the emotions to Doug. But I do really love not talking, so writing songs without lyrics feels a lot more honest to me. Words are so reductive.

EB: I can be a lot more honest without lyrics. Harmonies, counter-melodies, layers and textures, these can be far more complex when vocals aren’t in the front, and without words the music can take on a very personal meaning, where the meaning can change with each listen, or even each performance.


Tarantino or Kubrick?

RB: Kubrick.

EB: Lynch.


Warlocks or witches?

RB: Witches.


What creeps you out the most?

RB: The other day this 7’ tall stranger was staring me down while I was throwing out my trash in the alley. That was pretty unsettling. I hate being watched.


+ + +

Listen to Dirty Spells' new album, Teeth. You can also check them out on Facebook.

See more from Victoria Black and Lindsay's Diet here:

Victoria Black, @victoriatakesphotos | victoriablackphotographs.com

Lindsay's Diet, @lindsaysdiet | lindsaysdiet.com


Posted on June 4, 2015 - Creep Magazine

We were interviewed, as well as guest curated the music. - CJSF 90.1 FM

“We were eating nachos the last time you interviewed us, too.”

The last time I sat down with Dirty Spells—for the April 2012 issue of Discorder—also included that venerable staple of musicians and journalists alike. And, while the faces across from me are familiar from that meeting two years ago, the band I’m interviewing couldn’t be any more different.

It was a fair spring day when I met up with Dirty Spells back then, and the seven-piece outfit were coming off their recording-day highs at Foundation after completing their psych-rock EP, No Fun City. Now, I’m sitting with three of the original members at the Narrow, celebrating the release of their third album, Teeth, and their first as a post-rock trio. It’s a huge change for violinist Emily Bach, bassist Doug Phillips, and drummer Ryan Betts—not to mention their fans, who have stuck through genre and lineup changes between then and now—but that’s a part of what makes the Dirty Spells of today so interesting.

At its core, the musicians insist Dirty Spells is, in spirit, the same band as the one I talked to underneath Foundation’s hyper-loud hip-hop environment. Despite the massive shift in cast and content, the band is still Dirty Spells in their eyes. “A lot has happened in two years. We only lasted as a seven-piece for a few months after [recording our first EP], but this lineup is effectively a year old,” Betts confirms. “There was a short period where we thought we might want to change the name—but we kinda like it, so fuck it.”

As to how the band came to adopt a post-rock soundscape over rock ‘n’ roll underpinnings, Bach has a deceptively simple answer: “The three of us had all these interludes that we wrote and played while Greg [Pothier, their original guitarist] was tuning his guitar. They were tiny little things, but … they were so different, and the three of us vibed so easily.”

“Vibing” is a strange concept considering the backgrounds of each of the musicians involved in Dirty Spells. Bach is a classically-trained violinist familiar with sheet music, orchestras, and conductors; Betts is one-third of machine-gun art-punk darlings the New Values; and Phillips is otherwise known as the Dooouge in the franken-stoner-rap group Too High Crew. It’s a pedigree that, on paper, mixes like oil and water. In practice, it makes for one of the most fascinating Vancouver bands to pop up in a long time.

The aptly-named Teeth is a full-length easy to sink your jowls into. The mostly-instrumental affair has just the faintest whiff of No Fun City in its space-rock violin chimes, but apart from the occasional production nod it’s miles away from Vancouver’s familiar rock community. Bach’s violin doubles as a saxophone, synthesizer, guitar, and organ by a creative combination of pedals and playing styles, and Phillips’ bass lines more often than not creep their way into each song’s melodies.

This isn’t Godspeed You! Black Emperor Lite, nor is it Mogwai-minus-15-guitars—instead, Dirty Spells borrow much from Japanese post-rock bands like Sgt., Hyacca, or even Vancouver’s own the Barcelona Chair. The unique blend of punk drumming, classical melodies, and heavy bass lines makes Teeth a unique record with plenty of bite. The band owe a lot, says Phillips, to producer Felix Fung. “He was integral in terms of us realizing that, as a three-piece, we could make it all work. We’ve just evolved as a result.”

Not to be outdone by their own recording, Dirty Spells are just as captivating in a live context. Figuring out how each weird sound is being generated, or how the odd trio work around equally odd time signatures and rhythms, is half the fun, like watching someone stuff broken jigsaw puzzle pieces together and admiring the abstract result.

And what’s next for the ever-changing band? “What history tells us is, who the fuck knows?” Betts chirps. “We’re slowly moving towards a band in which there are zero people, and no music whatsoever. The [next] album will be a tribute to John Cage.”

While the band figures out when/where the album release party will be, you can buy Dirty Spells’ latest album Teeth through their Bandcamp page. - Discorder Magazine, written by Fraser Dobbs

"What happens when you take a three-piece and swap out the guitar with a violin? Magic, apparently. Dirty Spells does that Vancouver thing of taking an idea that in the wrong hands could emerge as frustratingly pretentious and instead makes something staggeringly beautiful. There’s nothing a violin can’t do when it comes to captivation. There were people walking up the stairs next to the stage who actually stopped in their tracks. It’s impressively beautiful music: disarming, actually. So many pleasing elements at play, it’s music where you can let go and enjoy knowing your taste is impeccable. Though the whole band is extremely talented, the star is violinist Emily Bach. Whether she’s bowing or plucking, both done pitch perfectly, she’s the ethereal backbone of this act. If you can watch them play and consent to take your eyes off her, then that’s amazing. Nothing against the other two but when you’ve got a blonde in a yellow jumpsuit playing violin with an arsenal of pedals, you gotta be OK with being second fiddle, so to speak." (JO) - Beatroute review, written by Jennie Orton

"Straight from your gnarliest hangover, Dirty Spells blast apart your reality with sawed-off violins, motorik drumming and Italian, retro-futurist, science-fiction soundtracks. Honestly, this is the most honest band to come out of Vancouver in some time, even if that honesty is chemically supplanted." - Sled Island Website

“Make more laser sounds!” I’m sitting in a swivel-chair at Watershed Productions, a recording studio overlooking Victory Square. An hour earlier, I met Greg Pothier and Doug Phillips, the two figureheads behind Dirty Spells, and instead of asking me where I wanted to interview them, the first question they pitched was how much time I had to work with.
Before long, I found myself on the other side of a soundproof booth listening to a violin mimic blaster rifles. Dirty Spells are anything but orthodox. Along with Emily Bach, Bryce MacLean, Graeme and Ryan Betts, and Eric Campbell, the recording studio was bursting at the seams.
“We asked, ‘what if we put two bands together?’” Pothier tells me later over a plate of nachos at Foundation. Boasting both dueling drums and guitars, bass, violin and sax, it’s easy to get caught up in all the sounds going on in Dirty Spells’ first EP, released at the end March.

The band, which shares members with the likes of the New Values and Sigourney Beaver, are “building a wall of noise, and each instrument is a brick,” says Pothier, but it would be a mistake to dismiss the psych-rock collective as cacophonic. “We don’t want to sound like seven different people playing apart,” Phillips notes, “We’re taking these jazz and classical instruments and totally misusing them, trying to find a way to incorporate them without standing out.”
Back in the studio, producer Hayz Fisher, also of the New Values, gives me the abbreviated tour of the recording equipment and gear. There’s the usual assortment of pristine soundboards and antique effects racks, but what makes this space so easy to relax in is the sense of history: every guitar, every book, every framed picture or propped-up card has a story behind it. There’s no beer-stains here, but you can tell just by the chips of paint on the ledge of the sound-booth, and the worn patches on the hardwood floor that this place has seen many a pilgrim. It’s been a long two days for the musicians and their producer, but the warm environment doesn’t feel like a prison one bit.

On this, the final day recording, I arrive just in time to watch Bach lay down her parts on violin, which were more space-rock than chamber music. “I’ve [been] playing classical music since I was three: really stodgy, up-tight [and] structured. It’s great to play in a band where I just get to make noises instead of reading sheet music. I feel like it’s an evolution… or a devolution?” Bach’s contributions to the psychedelic “UFO” (written with an eye to Pothier’s childhood growing up near the Franconia Notch, an infamous alien hotspot) are bold slabs of paint on an already-colourful canvas; watching her experiment on her violin to etch out the right frequencies is a bit like how I expect Foley artists operate, albeit with fewer observers.
Everyone on my side of the glass was either gesticulating wildly, making laser sounds with their mouths, or enthusiastically nodding their heads when the perfect pitch was attained. The result needs to be heard to be believed, lying somewhere between Jimmy Page’s more druggy Zeppelin moments and a guy-wire being snapped in slow-motion.
Graeme Betts’ performance was equally mesmerizing, as he contributed saxophone tracks with a notable twist: he was feeding his sax through a whammy pedal, which he used like a trucker on speed, changing the pitch of his instrument with freakish irregularity. The end result was a psychotic blend of bluesy horn hits and what MacLane called “demon-brass,” like the sound of a steam-engine train in a tunnel thrown through a blender. “I feel pretty good about jamming in a psychedelic band,” Betts says, “[I] kinda get my growl on”. Or, as Phillips aptly puts, “It’s a saxophone, but it sounds like a synthesizer.” The group had recorded guitar, bass and drums the previous day, and most of the vocal work was done early in the studio, before I arrived. They assured me that I wasn’t missing much though, noting how tedious it was to get all of those instruments just right.

As time in the studio dwindles to an end, everyone sets up to shout out gang vocals for the track, “Hangover City”. This event had been mentioned often throughout the course of the day as sort of a milestone moment, both for signifying the end of the long day and as something genuinely fun and relatively easy that the group can relax on. The song itself is a pretty straight-forward rock tune to the sound of late-’60s Rolling Stones, and is one of the only pieces on the four-track EP that I could discern a notable influence.
The lines we were shouting, “Hangover City!” and “That girl was pretty!” were just silly enough out-of-context to make giggling between takes nearly impossible to avoid. The track, less psych than Americana, has a distinct “Johnny B. Goode” feel with its walking bass line and thick guitar chords. And unlike what the name suggests, the track is filled with the kind of songs-for-summer optimism that predates a morning-after headache.
“Hangover City” also ties in to the band’s methods for getting their music heard. “The EP is entirely to put together a Sonicbids page to be able to apply for [music festivals such as] Music Waste, Olio, Rifflandia, [and] Sled Island”, Pothier explains. “We’re going to be printing postcards with the Bandcamp link and ‘Greetings From Hangover City’ on them. Postcards are cool, right?” The catch-phrase, which started as a joke between Ryan Betts and the rest of the band, seems to fit the lunatic positive energy that possesses the entire group.
“The only thing that sucks about this band is the parking tickets” bemoans MacLean as we exit Watershed to a fresh batch of paper slips on their vehicles.
It’s likely that in the future, Dirty Spells will have an elaborate and impossible-to-verify backstory regarding the formation of their band, possibly with oblique references to the supposed alien abductions of Betty and Barney Hill, that inspired Pothier to write “UFO.” Maybe they’ll claim that the seven of them came together during a witch-hunt or while searching for the elusive Ogopogo, but the reality is a lot simpler.

“Doug and I were in a short-lived band [called] Shot Royalties,” recalls Pothier. “I had a bunch of gigs that I [was committed to playing]; I didn’t want to play solo so I asked my friends if they wanted to join up, and it worked great… [but] it’s still in its embryonic form.”
So how likely is it that the incarnation of Dirty Spells I talked to will be the same that is playing shows a few months from now? According to Phillips, it’s hard to say. “It’s an old idea that Greg and I had, to have a rotating cast of people coming in and contributing on certain songs. It built from there, even if our setup is more permanent now.”
Over the sounds of us digging into nachos and beer, there’s the noise of a band in flux. With an EP out the door and the prospect of festival spots in the headlights, Dirty Spells has all the positive energy it needs to do something remarkable. Spending a few hours talking about music, art and space aliens, I realized that their passion and warmth is contagious. If their live sets are anywhere near as friendly and interesting, Dirty Spells will have a lot of fun in Vancouver, even if it is Hangover City. - Discorder Magazine, written by Fraser Dobbs

"A quick jaunt downstairs brought me to Dirty Spells, the Vancouver instrumental post-rock trio who recently released their third EP Teeth. A lot has changed since their 2012 performance at Sled and if anyone in the audience had seen both shows, they likely wouldn’t believe this cinematic powerhouse of 2014 was the same garage band of 2012. They played a tight six-song set, with seamless transitions between songs, which blended together to shape more of a movie score than a sequence of songs. The combination of regular shows recently on their home turf and healthy hit of adrenaline after a cancelled flight put drummer Ryan Betts in the venue only 30 minutes before set time made for a polished, high energy set." - Discorder Magazine, written by Laurel Borrowman

“Ask around.” That’s the catch phrase for many concert-goers right now—and it’s not just for after hours.
After the city was strangled of many of its longstanding live music venues, both small and large (R.I.P. Richard’s), over the past half-decade, new blood is beginning to flow through the veins of our city once again. The soft orange light from various Japanese lanterns, red velvet curtain, homely atmosphere, and careful curation have fast made Merge a destination venue worth seeking out. The evening of August 8 was no exception.
Beginning with the bedroom melodies of singer/songwriter Selina Koop, whose pious presence had the small crowd craning its ears, it quickly became evident that musicians would play for musicians on this night, free from the pop sensibilities of the masses. The songstress’ lonesome lamentations made use of the oft-overlooked negative space her piano and vocals allowed for, causing the small but devoted crowd to slow down and pay attention.
Meanwhile, the simplicity of “Into the Sun” relied only on the piano’s dampener to emphasize it’s accents as it closed out the pianist’s brief set.
Acting antithetically to Koop’s elegant quietude, the violin-drums-bass trio Dirty Spells brought their maximalist compositions to the stage without warning. Three-chord simplicity had no place in the Dirty Spells’ songbook as south paw drummer Ryan Betts kept his cymbals piled on the left, allowing him to pummel the open kit through songs like “Hyperböl,” taken from their latest EP Teeth. Then there was the dramatic instrumental post-rock of “Causeway Cannibal” that stretched for nearly 10 minutes as violinist Emily Bach’s subtle finger plucking evolved into a calculated cacophonous climax by the trio. By the end it was clear that amidst a sea of pop and post-punk outfits that dominate the local music scene, the Spells’ recent decision to trim over half the troupe’s original members has shown to have paid off in the mastery of those who remain.
After being wished a happy birthday by all, frontman and bassist Doug Phillips, bowed out to make way for the final act: Limbs of the Stars. Headed by jazz-rock crossover mastermind Stephen Lyons, the four final players arranged themselves in a horseshoe so they could not only look up and feed off of each other, as many improv players do, but it also allowed Lyons to conduct the quartet from behind his guitar and mess of pedals. Diving right into a mix of jazz, folk, and turn-of-the-century indie rock accented with flourishes of New Weird America, the humble ensemble played slow building jams, such as “Film Song,” that gave way to indulgent soloing while keeping the audience engaged. As the set drew on, Lyons feverishly instructed the remaining trio between guitar caterwauls and delay loops on the rollicking “Us Vs Them.” While the six-song set seemed condensed, nearly an hour had passed before the band thanked the crowd who awoke from their trance, mingled awhile, and proceeded into the night.
As I followed suit, the question persisted: Is it better to play to a captivated audience of 30 or a hundred preoccupied LED-blue faces? So while you may have to “ask around” to find Merge, a little detective work will yield great results for those who go looking. - Discorder Magazine, Real Live Review by Robert Catherall