Swami Upgrade

So there it is. #UPGRADE is pretty much finished. Minor tweaks still being made. First single will be chosen soon and we’ll begin working on artwork and planning a timeframe. Wow. It’s taken two and a half years. That’s way longer than any album we’ve made before. And we’re more proud of this than anything we’ve done before. Kinda crazy to think about people hearing it for the first time when we’ve been working on this stuff for so long. Hopefully we can have a listening party and invite a few fans. We’ll definitely be keeping you updated. I’m actually really looking forward to us designing new merchandise and stuff like that too. Can’t wait to get out on the road. From this point, our live shows will be 90% comprised of the new album. No more than 2 or 3 of the old songs at most. We’re all amped to perform the new songs. And they all will work incredibly well in a live context. They all work well acoustically too, so we’re going to do some unplugged performances and film them! So many cool things lined up! 

Hope you’re all as excited as we are - it won’t be long before we can announce a release date for the first single!

So incredibly happy!! It’s been a long road, but I’m still amazed at what we’ve been able to do. Proud of myself, and even more proud of my bandmates. Diamond deserves more credit than anyone…..there aren’t many people so dedicated and motivated and under his leadership the rest of us have done things we never thought we’d be able to do. 

Stay tuned folks…… the ride is about to begin! R u ready 2 upgrade ur sound?

Peace!

S-Endz

x

As we finish up the recording of our new album and Diamond goes full speed ahead into the mixing stage, I find myself reflecting on exactly what we’ve managed to achieve and how it’s actually quite breathtaking.

Two versions of the album, one entirely in English, aimed at the US pop market, another version with Punjabi and Hindi vocals aimed directly at India. Our existing fanbase from the past decade has been in the middle of both, and this fanbase will love both albums upon release. Hopefully, a big cross-sect of the new fans we gain from each version will be interested enough to check out the other.

I don’t think it’s wrong for me to talk about how I really believe we’ve made an outstanding, incredible album. The reason for that is because, while I can’t be objective about my own songwriting and vocals, I definitely can be about what Diamond, Sups and Liana have brought to the table. Naturally, I’ve heard pretty much everything that Diamond’s ever produced that’s been released over the length of his career, and a lot of stuff that hasn’t been released. Musically, our new album IS the best stuff he’s ever done. And he continues to learn more and more on a technical level as well. His mixing and engineering skills are up there with any name you see in the credits of multiplatinum albums from the biggest artists in the world.

In the 5 years since Sups joined us, he’s gone from a good English singer with potential, to a powerhouse vocalist in both English AND Punjabi, and I’ve witnessed him do vocals over and over again until he can barely speak during the recording process of this album, until we get that killer take. Liana too - I think we all lost count of how many times we recorded, chopped and changed, re-recorded, re-wrote…. The finished versions of the songs sound radically different to even how they sounded this time last year. 

Unfortunately right now the amount of planning, marketing, and logistics of exactly how we’re going to get this all out there, and in the best possible ways seems like a mammoth undertaking. Believe me when I say that we, and our management, are all sharing ideas on a daily basis. We’re determined to blow the world away this time, through one thing that sounds simple, but is actually one of the hardest things in the world to create - incredible music. 

Thanks to all of our fans that have been incredibly patient with us on this journey. The #Upgrade will start soon. We love you all!

peaceandbewild…

S-Endz aka Casey Rain…

fuckyeahswami:

I have never been as excited about revealing new material as I am for the new Swami album. UPGRADE is the result of a great deal of personal exploration and a focus on achieving new levels of expression.
 
Though we have always been extremely selective and precise with our previous work, this album has taken the longest by far. Many (many, many!!) hours have been spent in various studios around the world, reworking intricate progressions in the melodies, lyrics, beats and so on.

As usual, we have been true to ourselves in the music and song content, and a huge part of that truth lies in our experimentation. Our previous work centred around the question ‘Who am I?’ …  We tried to discover our identities through our music, urging you (the listeners) to do the same.
However, through the songs on this album I feel we can now stand and confidently say ‘THIS is who we are’.
 
Aptly titled, ‘UPGRADE’ doesn’t just outline the development in our approach to making music, but also defines our progression - as individuals and as a band.

- Sups xx

One thing we try to do in this band, is be as accessible as possible, at all times. We know that our fans are all over the world, in different time zones, countries, talking to us, and each other from phones, computers and more. It shouldn’t matter what network you use, you should always be able to communicate and follow what we’re doing. So with that said, you can now follow both Diamond and S-Endz on the brand new Google+ network. Links are below…. see you there!

Diamond on Google+

S-Endz on Google+

photos (c) Kamaljit Bains 2011

Welcome to UpgradeUrSound.com - the official Tumblr for Swami, specifically our forthcoming album “Upgrade”. We’re gonna be blogging here about the new album and launching exclusive sneak peeks here before anywhere else, so make sure you click that “Follow” button at the top right… peep that “Ask Us Anything” button on the right hand side as well, so if there’s anything you wanna know…. go right ahead and ask. 

The official hashtags on Twitter are #Upgrade and #UpgradeUrSound so use those when you’re tweeting about us… 

More news coming soon…