Film School is the band and brainchild of San Francisco's Greg Bertens. Started in 1998, the group has seen constant evolution and change. His shoegaze-based sound has expanded and reexpanded, with the band's lineup changing for each of its four albums. One thing that's remained is Bertens's ability to create open and propulsive music. Film School's latest album, Fission (Hi-Speed Soul), is darkly poppy, with drones reminiscent of the Cure and M83. On the record, bassist/vocalist Lorelei Plotczyk steers Film School into Stereolab's odd, driving, he/she beauty. On tour now, Bertens spoke from some form of moving vehicle.

Where did you record Fission?

Studios and living rooms in Los Angeles, where I live, third planet orbiting the star Sol in the local solar system, in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy, in the Local Group, located in the Virgo Supercluster.

You produced Fission yourself. Do you prefer recording at home as opposed to in a studio?

It's hard to be creative when you're on the clock at a studio, but it's tough to get good drum tones at home. We use the hybrid studio/living-room method where we record bass and drums first in a small studio, then do the rest at home on Logic. I have a hard time recording vocals in a studio with others around, especially if I want to experiment with vocal tones or delivery.

How do you get sounds?

Most great sound moments for me come about by accident, or maybe I should say by tinkering and then getting an unexpected, but good, result. I like to loop a song I'm working on and randomly pull up synth tones or beats and apply effects or EQs. It can take some time and most of it doesn't work, but once in a while you'll find a tone or beat that changes the way you think of the song. While working on Fission, I was flipping through some library beats in Logic and found a drum loop that I'm pretty sure the Ting Tings used on "Great DJ."

What was the hardest part of recording this album?

The last 10 percent of each song. It's where a song has to become great. It's all the subtle changes, and hearing what needs to happen in order to make it great, that can be tough.

Film School has seen lineup changes. Other than personnel, how would you say Film School has changed over the years?

How has it not? I didn't set out for the band to be like this, but each record has seen a different lineup. I think what results is a different take on the Film School sound from record to record, but I still see it all as Film School.

How did the song "Sunny Day" come about? That's a Lorelei one?

Yeah. Lorelei brought in a demo for it. There was a little hesitation from some band members about this song at first, but I could really hear a 1960s psych-pop production on it with jangly guitars, so I pushed for it. Here's the original demo and the final product. One of the things I love about this demo is that it's so rough. Lorelei had just learned how to record onto her computer, so it's got all sorts of clicks and issues, which I find to be charming.

You just played the Pop Montreal festival, and there was an incident with the sound engineer. What happened?

Well, the sound guy was being a d-bag to all the bands. By the time we got onstage, the show was running way late and this guy was in full form. We couldn't hear anything through the monitors at all, and for the first two songs he had my vocal mic muted! The audience was pissed, and so were we. At one point during our set, he said to us, over the mic while we were onstage, that if we could afford a sound guy then we would have gotten a halfway decent mix. I sorta lost it at that point and called him out for his attitude toward the bands and told him to leave the board. It was pretty tense for a few minutes until Lorelei jumped in and asked for everyone to get along. The show ended up being okay, thankfully. After driving eight hours though, and dealing with border and van issues, the last thing we had the patience for was a guy like that.

That's good it didn't result in you storming off stage, or violence, or someone getting roofied. Because someone easily could have gotten roofied there.

Roofie'ing would definitely have been unfortunate; we try to kill 'em with kindness.

Film School play Fri Oct 15 at Sunset Tavern with the Depreciation Guild and Hotels.