Watch Aswekeepsearching Rework ‘What If_?’ into Upbeat New Version

In September last year, post-rock band Aswekeepsearching were invited to perform at living room gig series Sofar in Pune. They turned some of their songs around, but due to sound issues in recording the show, the audio they retrieved was unusable. “We couldn’t release any videos from the gig,” says frontman Uddipan Sarmah.

For the band that’s been ruling the festival and club touring circuit for the last couple of years, Aswekeepsearching realized the four tracks they’d toned down could be released separately. The band headed down to Levi’s Lounge in Mumbai to take up one of their fan favorites, “What If_?” and play an entirely new version to an intimate audience. Drummer Gautam Deb says in the video, “We met a day before to jam, but we didn’t jam on this song. Let’s just go to Levi’s and do something there and capture something in the moment.”

The band turns ”˜What If_?’ ”“ off their 2015 album Khwaab ”“ away from its aggressive energy to start with sparse spaced out verses that lead into dance-y drumming, lending an almost electronic edge. “We also wanted to keep putting out new content, so this was a chance for that. Plus, people always ask us about our songwriting and creative process, since we’re based out of different cities,” Sarmah says. An audio version of the reworked track will release on March 14th.

While the guitarist-vocalist adds that the band has always enjoyed an intimate setting, Aswekeepsearching are heading out to bigger stages soon, and it’s not just college shows at the Manipal Institute of Technology (March 9th) or Jadavpur University in Kolkata (March 10th). The band will make their European festival debut at Dunk! Festival in Zottegem, Belgium between May 10th and 12th, with more shows in the works.

Watch the video for “What If_?”