New Album: Princess Leia’s Stolen Death Star Plans

After five long years, we are thrilled to announce that our new album is available today — and it’s free!

This year marks two important pop-culture milestones: The 40th anniversary of Star Wars on May 25, and the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band a week later, June 1. Our new album merges both into one full-length concept album titled Princess Leia’s Stolen Death Star Plans. It’s the entire Beatles album as accurately as we could record it, only now it tells the story of Star Wars: A New Hope — in order. We sweat the details on both sides in an effort to do both cultural milestones justice. Writing hyper-specific lyrics that match the original songs’ cadences; reverse-engineering everything the Beatles recorded, from distorted saxophone riffs to Indian tabla rhythms; recording everything from scratch and learning as we went — well, that’s what takes five years.

If you want to download the album, it’s available as both 320kbps MP3 and FLAC. You can also embed or pass around SoundCloud links — our page is soundcloud.com/paletteswapninja, where the music streams at a mobile-friendly 128kbps. But we figure most people will want to experience it on YouTube, where you can watch the entire story via lyric videos at bit.ly/starwarsbeatles. Thanks to Katrin Auch for creating those!

We’re very proud. We’re very happy. We’re very tired. And if you like what you hear, we only ask that you spread the word. This is a fan-made labor of love and a free download. Use the hashtag #PLSDSP if you’re so inclined; we’d particularly appreciate any signal boost this Thursday, May the Fourth — Star Wars Day! We also have a media kit with a press release and images and the whole bit.

Thanks for your literal years of patience and support while we worked to make this what we always hoped it would be. Enjoy the album, share the links, and may The Force be with you.