Winnipeg's SC Mira says goodbye to old sound on new EP

Watch SC Mira perform Breaking My Skin live at CBC in the video above.

Winnipeg's SC Mira is preparing to debut a brand new sound after four years as a force in the local music scene.

Keep Crawling, the band's EP due out later this summer, will feature three new singles with heavy bass lines, more synth and a more "digital" sound.

"Lately, I think we've been saying we play 'death pop?' It's a lot darker. The lyrics have always been dark, and nowthe music is shifting to match that. A lot more synth, whereas before it was a lot more guitar and acoustic-guitar driven," said frontwoman Sadye Cage.

The band has gone from a two-piece (Cage and guitarist Ty Vega) with a rotating group of friends and local musicians filling in to a permanent five-piece with Mario Lagasse on bass, Caro LaFlamme on keys and backup vocals, and Joel Leonhardt drumming.

Cage's Karen O voice coupled with Vega's vaguely folk guitar riffs are now giving way to a heavier sound.

The group said things really started to change when they toured with LaFlamme, the only member of the band who had to audition.

Within a few weeks, she was on the road with the band and time-worn tracks were getting tweaks.

"I definitely always felt like we were always missing that fifth piece of having the keys in there. When that came in, it was, like, 'OK, now we have all these ideas and Caro is bringing in all these ideas,'" said Cage.

"It was kind of that final piece that clicked and allowed us to do what we were feeling."

Now, the band is gearing up for a summer tour of southern Ontario, introducing their new sound to audiences.

"[It's] that shift from guitar to keys and digital," said LaFlamme. "I think it's just really exciting for us to be putting something out into the world that reflects the direction we're going."

Keep Crawling is due out this summer, and then SC Mira will be touring southern Ontario in early August.

You can hear SC Mira's new sound as they hit the Old Market Square stage Saturday night a 7 p.m. as part of the Winnipeg Jazz Festival.