Recorded live in a studio seven floors above the winding streets and alleys of Naples, Italy, “Siempre Contigo” is a new recording of one of Jai-Jagdeesh’s classic songs, stripped to its essence, translated into Spanish and performed completely from the heart. In honor of the 10th anniversary of her album ‘I Am Thine’, this acoustic Spanish-language version of “With You”, a testament to the power of ever-present love, is her most intimate recording yet.
Here, we look back at the release of ‘I Am Thine’ ten years ago, and look forward in celebration with Jai-Jagdeesh.
What do you remember as the feeling of working on your first album, ‘I Am Thine’? Is there something from that experience that has stayed with you throughout your career?
The thing I remember most clearly about working on ‘I Am Thine’ was the newness of every single step. Each thing was a “first” for me, from creating the scratch tracks as foundation (first time!), to having a producer (first time!), to choosing whom we’d hire for instrumental magic (first time!), to renting a fancy studio with a fancy microphone for all the vocal takes (first time!), to arguing about a song’s arrangement (first time!), to sourcing a graphic designer for cover art (first time!), to defending certain creative choices (you get the drift…). It was all BIG. And the learning curve was STEEP. But luckily Phoenix (aka Krishan, the album’s producer) and I had paced ourselves really slowly to start out, working on the project just 2 or 3 days per month. We both had other jobs and were doing this in our spare time—and I think I was better able to handle the scary immensity because it came at me in bite-sized pieces.
The thing that I’ve carried with me since then is the alchemy of the process. We started with a few seeds and turned them into a whole farm. My tentatively-shared song ideas became a full album, which then became a soundtrack for the lives of people around the world whom I’d never met. It was surreal. I felt like it all came out of thin air, too—and I still feel that way each time I reach the end of a studio project; like, “Wow, we did it. How did we do it? Where did everything come from, how did it get so massive, and did we REALLY reach the finish line?” I’m always amazed by people who create. The ability to weave good, great, weird, wild, or even bad (initially) ideas into tangible beauty is awe-inspiring. And it’s a wonder that anyone ever finishes anything, because we could easily get lost in the creative cave forever.
How has your musical creative process changed over the last ten years?
My writing and recording process has slowly widened and deepened over the course of the last decade. I have a greater sense of trust in myself and in my instincts, which it seems is a product of having more and more firsthand experience at something. I’m better at communicating with collaborators, having learned so much about the workings of many other types of musical minds. I feel more agency and decisiveness, because I’m in better touch with my own aesthetic and stylistic sensibilities. And the most interesting thing about all of the above is that, while working on my debut project, I was certain I already possessed each of those qualities—self trust, solid communication skills, true agency, a finely-honed aesthetic sense—in abundance, but I didn’t realize how much more was possible. Time is such a wonderful teacher, as is trial and error, as is making a mess. They all give exquisite gifts.
I also think about songs differently than I used to. I’m less ‘precious’ about them, by which I mean I’m more willing to throw something away when it’s not working, as opposed to needing to keep it forever just because it’s something I wrote. I do have all my little bits of composition on file digitally, even ones that didn’t work the first time I tried, because you never know, maybe it’ll click later on down the line…but I’m very comfortable shelving a thing that isn’t evolving. Because something wonderful always takes its place.
Creating music in an unfamiliar language is quite an undertaking. What was your motivation to record this music in Spanish?
I have deeply loved the experiences I’ve had in every Spanish-speaking country I’ve ever had a chance to visit. They have all been so generously supportive of my career from the very first moment, which helped make quite a few potentially-overwhelming milestones a lot easier for me. And, because the language is so beautiful, I’ve passively studied Spanish for a while now—so I really liked the idea of singing some of my English pieces in Spanish whenever I went somewhere that it made sense to do so. Because it’s incredibly special to receive a beloved song in the language that is your own, especially if it’s been revised just for you. The words sink into your bones in a different way.
What has been your experience in revisiting & recreating one of your first songs? Are there any moments that stand out to you from the process of making ‘Siempre Contigo’?
This was a really special undertaking. The words for ‘With You’ were actually the very first English lyrics I ever wrote, so it was a full circle moment to drop back into them. And of course we wanted to reimagine the song, to make it something truly new in more ways than just the language change, so we stripped it down to its bare bones: a guitar (played by Bryan Benner, whom I adore) and a voice, nothing more. Ram Dass mixed it beautifully—and he also convinced me that the emotionally raw quality of the vocal take, which at first I was a little unhappy about, was “the way to go.”
It’s been a hard couple of years, so every single bit of singing I’ve done for my current and upcoming projects has got a bit of an ache in it…and that’s my current truth, so I’m mostly at peace with the presence of the ache…but for THIS one, I felt like I wanted to redo the vocal. I wanted something with more strength behind it; still sweet, but a little stronger. Ram Dass encouraged me to let it be, to trust that the tone & texture was precisely right. And now that we’re publishing it, I’m glad it’s exactly as it is.
I’ll think of Bryan each time I hear ‘Siempre Contigo.’ Working with him is, in and of itself, a standout moment. He brings such joy and humor to the workflow, all while bringing tremendous skill and heart to the music itself. Such a gem of a person.
We are super excited about your new music. Can you give us a sneak peek of your upcoming projects?
Yes! A small one, but yes! There’s another song from my first album that’s been reimagined—with new instruments, new arrangement, and Spanish in place of English—in honor of its 10th Anniversary of existence, and the sheer prettiness of this piece of music is off the charts. I can’t wait for everyone to hear it. February 4th.
Beyond that, I have a huge heap of musical world premieres happening from April through July of 2022. I wrote an entire album in a few short weeks—with the immeasurably valuable and completely inspiring help of Ram Dass and Bogdan Djukic—as a therapeutic self-assignment in response to the personal upheaval I experienced in home, family, and community these last two years. The album is messy and it’s sad and it’s complicated and it’s tender, both lyrically and musically. It’s got moments of freedom and celebration too, because sometimes the best way to exorcize a personal demon is to JAM it the f*ck out… but this collection is largely comprised of songs that represent various stages of grief. I don’t think I’m done crying about everything yet, there’s plenty more to clear. But making music sure did help.