Across scripture and cosmology alike, the number seven symbolizes virtue and divine perfection. When Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally were considering titles for their seventh record as Beach House, the numeral called out to them. “It has this singularity, it’s standing alone in space the way a ‘1’ does,” Legrand tells me on a recent evening in New York. “It’s sort of pointing in a direction, but you don’t know where. ‘7’ contains everything that words could not for this album.”

The record is one of rebirth, and easily the Baltimore duo’s most apparent sonic departure since 2012’s Bloom. “We felt an excitement working on it that felt much more intense and visceral than it had in a bunch of years,” Scally says. For the first time since their 2010 breakout Teen Dream, Legrand and Scally chose not to work with their longtime co-producer Chris Coady. Instead they teamed up with Spacemen 3’s Peter Kember, aka Sonic Boom, who encouraged them to follow their whims to see where they could lead. “We were letting creativity have full rein, with no anxiety of, ‘Will this be able to be reproduced live in concert?,’” Legrand adds.

Such practicalities are not necessarily Beach House’s strong suit. Their magic as a band has always centered around Legrand and Scally’s ongoing exchange of inspirations and ideas. Perhaps why they’ve worked so well, for so long, is because they are in some ways spiritual foils; you can see this on a small scale as we sip drinks at a Manhattan hotel bar, Scally cocooned in a black hoodie while Legrand emphatically pierces the air with her bejeweled hands. “It’s just this conversation that’s always happening, even in times of nothingness,” Legrand says of their process. “We’ve been very lucky that the muse hasn’t gone away.” On 7, the muse appears in dying stars, decaying beauty, and elusive dreams. It is a striking reminder that within beauty, there is almost always an element of terror.

Pitchfork: You transformed your Baltimore practice space into a home studio to make this album. Were there any special objects that you had around while recording, like talismans?

Victoria Legrand: Oh, yeah, we’re surrounded by them. The space is full of endless junk from tour. It's organized, but it’s definitely like a museum, a hall of life. When we were in Louisiana for the last two records [recording at the Studio in the Country], we had this incredible ring of all of our organs and keyboards, so they create an energy field on their own.

Alex Scally: I think the individual sounds become talismans in their own right because so much of our music is based around the inspiration and obsession that comes with the sounds themselves. Before tour, we record all the sounds into our weird supercomputer organ, and they’re all there with us there every night.

You mentioned earlier that your co-producer Sonic Boom helped you break through certain patterns in your songwriting. Bringing a new person into such a defined set of sounds, what does that add?

AS: Breaking the kind of chord progressions or melodies that happen to come out of us when we write together would have to be a very intentional thing, whereas our M.O. has always been to have everything be as natural as possible. We really like messiness in music. I remember past moments in the studio where something would be really messy and off kilter, and I think we’re used to having someone around to be like, “You can't do that, no one can hear anything going on in the music.” But there’s a certain kind of creative energy that happens when there’s not a negative mood in the studio, you know?