“My dad was always watching those terrible Syfy channel shows,” TAUK bassist Charlie Dolan says with a laugh, describing the sci-fi themes so core to his band’s new release, Shapeshifter II: Outbreak. “Where it’s, like, ‘Attack of the Swamp Monster.’”

Despite those overly campy themes, Dolan grew to love the genre and, when his hard-touring quartet returned to the studio to follow up 2016’s Sir Nebula, they looked to acclaimed fare—like Netflix’s Stranger Things, 2014’s Ex Machina and the cult classic Blade Runner—for inspiration. The sessions proved to be so fertile that the group culled two spiritually linked releases out of the same sessions, the EP Shapeshifter I: Construct, which TAUK released in April, and their new full-length LP, which was released in late- September.

“We came in with a ton of material and wanted to get as much of it down as possible,” explains Dolan. “What’s really cool for this record is that we came in overly prepared. We probably had 20 songs in different forms of completion.”

The musicians entered the studio with a vision too, and everything from the album’s art—by illustrator Raul Urias—to its recording location tells a story. Knowing it would be the perfect environment to pull 12-hour sessions and dig deep on Shapeshifter’s otherworldly inspirations, Dolan and his bandmates—guitarist Matt Jalbert, keyboardist Alric “A.C.” Carter and drummer Isaac Teel—set up shop in a long- abandoned house near their home base in Oyster Bay, N.Y. “It had a very haunted house vibe to it,” he recalls. “We got the creepiness straight from where we were. We were in there for pretty much two months straight, just bangin’ it out.”

When they weren’t recording, Dolan and company worked in the studio in a completely different way, mending broken windows and adding sound baffles to help combat the cavernous nature of the building. They also managed to do some exploring. “We did go in the basement and found some animal skeletons,” Dolan admits, explaining that spending so much time among cobwebs and creaky floorboards “created a vibe for us to be as creative as possible.”

Veteran TAUK collaborator, Grammy-winning producer Robert Carranza, also spent some time on the Shapeshifter sessions, lending his trained ear and years of experience to the young band. Dolan lovingly refers to Carranza as TAUK’s fifth member, and he helped enlist special guests like The Naughty Horns, Snarky Puppy’s Nate Werth and Juan Alderete of The Mars Volta. “Even outside of recording, we’re always bouncing ideas off of him,” Dolan says of their mentor. “He’s got perspective. When you’re in the writing process, it’s good to have someone from the outside. He allows us to work in our most efficient way possible. This album is a testament to how much we still enjoy this space.”

Long Island natives Dolan, Carter and Jalbert started jamming together during lunch breaks in middle school, formed their first band in seventh grade and have continued to play music together ever since. When the group first formed TAUK— named after Montauk, a Hamptons beach community that Dolan used to visit growing up—they initially included singer Alessandro Zanelli. But after he left in 2011, the group honed in on the instrumental mix of post-rock, prog, funk and jazzy improvisations that’s been their calling card ever since. Teel signed on in 2012, and the combo has become a force on the jamband and festival circuits, including dates with Widespread Panic, Lettuce and their close friends Umphrey’s McGee.

Eager to get the tracks from Shapeshifter II: Outbreak onstage, Dolan is looking forward to the band’s full calendar of tour dates. Despite TAUK’s recent successes, he is still humbled when they get asked to play big gigs, like opening for STS9 at Red Rocks in early September. “I remember the first time we went out to Colorado. We were playing a small bar and we just went to Red Rocks and took it in,” he gushes. “We just needed to see it. It’s always been a goal for us, and our dream, to play there. Some of [the new songs] showcase different aspects of the band that haven’t been seen before. We’re really excited to play them live and see what people think.”

This article originally appears in the December 2018 issue of Relix. For more features, interviews, album reviews and more, subscribe here.