For Speedy Ortiz, being busy was business as usual in 2014.
In February the quartet released the “Real Hair” EP, led by the gnarly, anthemic “American Horror,” followed in subsequent months by “Bigger Party,” released through Adult Swim’s singles series, and a split single with Brattleboro-based Chris Weisman. The group toured relentlessly, playing festivals (including the Sound of Our Town gathering at the Lawn on D in October) and clubs in the United States and Europe. It snapped up a pair of Boston Music Awards nominations, including Artist of the Year. And in September, it heads to Brooklyn, N.Y., to work on the follow-up to last year’s explosive, critically acclaimed “Major Arcana” at the Rare Book Room, a vintage-equipment-stuffed studio in Greenpoint.
Friday night, the foursome — vocalist-guitarist Sadie Dupuis, drummer Mike Falcone, bassist Darl Ferm, and guitarist Devin McKnight — kicks off a residency at Great Scott in Allston. Speedy Ortiz is headlining the first three Fridays in December, supported by a rotating cast of bands from Boston and beyond.
“The first show that Darl played in the band was [at Great Scott], and we’ve always played there a lot since we started doing shows at all,” said Dupuis, who moved to Allston from western Massachusetts in August. “We’re friends with [Bowery Presents booker] Carl [Lavin], and we generally like doing shows with him. And he said, ‘Oh, you’ve got some time off, and you moved here, and it might be cool to do a residency pretty darn close to where you live.’”
The residency will also kick off some downtime for the band members — a rare thing, given their busy 2014. Touring will be light until their untitled second album, which the band is close to wrapping up, comes out, and each member will focus on his and her own projects.
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But before that, the three Great Scott shows loom, packed with exciting openers and the potential for surprises. In recent months, Speedy Ortiz has been trying out some still-unreleased songs live; “Graduates” has a taut intensity that resolves into a quiet denouement, while “Ginger” veers back and forth between churning riffs and a singsong chorus. Dupuis wrote the latter track during a Fourth of July songwriting marathon with a friend.
“I quit drinking and coffee and gluten and everything, and I was doing nothing but exercising and writing a ton of songs,” she recalled. “Somebody on Facebook posted about being so wasted, so that was what [it] was inspired by.”
The previews are, in part, the result of a new songwriting outlook on Dupuis’s part. “There are songs, our songs, that I just won’t play anymore,” she said. “A lot of our old stuff was coming from a place of being sad, or being angry at someone — almost like I put myself in horrible positions to get good songs out of it. This year I kicked everyone [bad] out of my life, and moved to a place where I have friends, and I’m just trying to not be so miserable all the time.
“When we knew we had to write new stuff, and I was like, How am I going to write about anything? I’m not upset about anything — I even said to a friend of mine, ‘Can you just be really mean to me for a while so I have something to write about?’ He was like, ‘What are you saying? You don’t have to be upset to write stuff.’ ”
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In addition, the band is experimenting with new recording techniques — at a late-November mixing session at the Rare Book Room during which the members were meticulously going over the already-laid-down tracks, Dupuis talked about how the new album differed from “Major Arcana” — in particular, the way more attention was paid to individual sonic elements. “We got to spend a little more time getting the right sounds for each [instrument]. It’s definitely a lot more controlled, which I think is cool,” she said.
Ferm’s officially the band’s bassist, but on the new album, he contributes a couple of guitar parts, which he came up with while his bandmates were laying down tracks. “When we were mixing, we would be like, ‘What’s that cool part? Is that Devin? Is that Sadie?’ And then we realized, ‘Oh, that’s Darl!’ ” recalled Dupuis.
“I feel like I play, like, four notes on four different songs,” said Ferm.
Back home, Speedy Ortiz has become established in the city’s music scene, from its Boston Music Awards nominations to its frequent presence at local venues and unabashed support of local stalwarts. The band invited riff-crushers Pile to open a show shared with Ex Hex earlier this fall; supporting acts scheduled for the Great Scott residency include the post-punk noisemakers Bent Shapes, the raucous distorto-pop outfit Sneeze, and the spare, twisty Krill.
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“Every time I see a random Boston band I’ve never heard of, it’s always awesome,” said Dupuis.
Maura Johnston can be reached at maura.johnston@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @maura.