Brooklyn’s Bishop Allen began this year by embarking on a decidedly outside-the-box strategy—rather than pursue the typical method of writing, recording and marketing an album, they decided to spend the entire year writing songs, and releasing the fruits of their labors each month in the form of quickly assembled EP’s. The year-long series, each EP named after the month of its release, would be available by mail order from their website. Even without great songs, the tactic was sure to get noticed, and sure enough, attention to the project soon came from all the usual outposts on the interwebs.

But the good news is that Bishop Allen has got the songs—fantastic songs, in fact. Songs with a genuine sense of occasion. Songs where gorgeous melodies tease themselves out of simple arrangements that eschew pop gloss for a hearty immediacy. Songs that aren’t merely glibly clever or poetically profound—rather, they conjure a fully portable worldview: where orphaned musical instruments tug on the heartstrings, folk heroes emerge to rally the drunk tank, and the lights above the city at night serve as an excuse for the homebound traveler to take whoever’s nearest in their arms and dance.

Bishop Allen will be playing DAM! Fest on Saturday, October 28 at DC9. We recently had the opportunity to talk with Justin Rice about the band’s experiences over the past year, the source of their inspiration, and their future plans.

Let me go ahead and ask the question that’s got to feel rote by now. What made you guys decide this year that you were going to release a four-song EP every month?

We toured for over a year after releasing our first record, Charm School. We played every city in the U.S. at least twice, as well as every town in Sweden. When we came home, exhausted, spent, and sick, we started working on a follow-up. We were calling it Clementines. Where Charm School was an intimate little bedroom record, we wanted Clementines to be bigger and louder and more boisterous. We were hacking our way through new songs, cadging studio time when and where we could, trying to piece it altogether as we went. It wasn’t working. The more time we spent on it, the less clear our progress became. Every change seemed lateral, and nothing brought us closer to finishing. The twelve songs we were working with stopped sounding like anything.