A meticulously shot sweep through a Victorian terraced house from garden to rooftop provides the beguiling video to Hejira's “Litmus Test,” shot by director Faith Millin. Bassist Rahel Debebe-Dessalegne and guitarist Sam Beste duet in the bedroom and Alex Reeve plays lead guitar on the landing, while the living room hosts drummer Alexis Nunez, and a small choir harmonize in the attic of the London property known as to as the 'House of Dreams.' This musical Tower Of Babel is home to the entire quartet, whose backgrounds stretch from Chile, Hungary, Germany, and Ethiopia. Debut album Prayer Before Birth will be be released October 21 via Accidental, the label run by maverick British sound artist and Björk collaborator Matthew Herbert. “They strive to create music that's both cerebral and emotional,” says Herbert of the foursome that he produced. “It's been great to hear it evolve into something so confident and symphonic.” NOWNESS put questions to band spokesman Reeve to talk collective creativity and sonic possibilities. 

How did the House Of Dreams affect your creative process?
Alex Reeve: We transformed the house into a recording studio, utilizing all areas from living rooms to bathrooms to experiment with different sonic possibilities. We have always been attracted to the idea that the space in which you perform or record becomes part of the composition. Instead of trying to control the natural resonance of each room, we fully embraced the unique character of each space and factored this into our production and recording decisions.

Did this mean that the house has a presence in your music?
AR: By the end we really knew the sound of the house as much as we would the sound of an instrument. As a result it became an extension of Hejira, and its voice is clearly audible on our album and in the live films we created there.

On a practical level, how did you and the director set the video up?
AR: We were adamant that the audio should all be recorded live; if it had been playback it would have lost a large part of what makes it unique, becoming more of a music video than a live film. Perhaps the hardest and also the most amusing was trying to follow the female protagonist through the house without getting any of the crew in shot, which led to people being locked away in toilets and cowering behind curtains.