The band called School of Seven Bells started as a love story.

In the early 2000s, Benjamin Curtis played guitar in a band called Secret Machines. At the same time, Alejandra Deheza was in another band called On! Air! Library! Deheza and Curtis met when their bands ended up on a tour together. It was kismet, like a movie.

“There was just something that hit. It was like lightning,” Deheza says. “I knew that we were definitely going to do something together — in life, definitely, but also musically.”

That “something” became School of Seven Bells.

In the summer of 2012, Curtis and Deheza began work on “SVIIB” — their fourth studio album. They were on a roll. “We just had so much freedom, we were so happy,” Deheza says. By the end of the summer, they had written pretty much all of the record. The plan was to go on tour that fall, and finish the record in the spring.

Then, in early 2013, Curtis got sick. He was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma. “The minute he got the diagnosis they started him on chemo,” Deheza says. “I honestly don’t know what made him more sick — if it was the chemo or if it was the cancer.”

But Curtis continued to work on the music, setting up shop in his hospital room. “He had a lot of stuff — his laptop and drives and little USB keyboards,” his brother and former Secret Machines band mate, Brandon Curtis, remembers. And in April 2013, Curtis and Deheza managed to get into the studio to record a new song, “Confusion.” It turned out to be the last song they wrote together.

The Stars Are Bright @benjamincurtis @brandoncurtis

A photo posted by Alejandra Deheza (@alleyestela) on Apr 26, 2013 at 8:57am PDT

After Curtis died in December 2013, Deheza, Brandon Curtis, and the album’s producer, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, had quite the task ahead of them.

“We didn’t talk about what his idea for the music would be,” Brandon Curtis says. “He wanted Alley to be in the position to make the kind of record she wanted to make. If that were to happen, he would be happy with it.”

Since Curtis had produced all of the band’s music, Meldal-Johnsen faced a steep learning curve when he tried to finish the work in progress. “Everything was done in Benjamin’s shorthand and it was scattered across several hard drives and had proprietary bits of software to create it.”

With the help of Brandon, who had worked with his brother and was familiar with the “housekeeping aspect” of Benjamin’s digital recording, Meldal-Johnsen and Deheza “took it all apart and put it back together again.”

Bass madness-@sviib in the studio w/Alley and Justin Meldal-Johnsen!!! #rarebookroom #schoolofsevenbells#bestnewmusic

A photo posted by Benjamin Curtis (@benjamincurtis) on Apr 26, 2013 at 2:47pm PDT

For Deheza, finishing the record has also helped her rediscover her identity. “It’s taken this whole time for me to stop asking that question: What would he do here?” she says. “We wrote together for ten years, so it’s been a long process to try to get to the point where I can actually differentiate what my voice is. I feel like I’m figuring that out now, finally.”