We did it, all thanks to you, lovely backers! The final cover artwork was completed, the last few bits of text were tweaked, and the album was uploaded to bandcamp. Now, as promised, our backers will receive their digital copy two weeks before the release date, which is April 8. You should receive an email soon with details on how to claim your download. I think you'll agree with us that Undercover is the best sounding album to date.

As for the physical CD rewards, we're still finalizing some of the details of the inside text and CD art. We want to make sure everything is perfect before we send it to the plant. That said, once we have the discs in our hot little hands we'll be contacting you for your addresses and get those out ASAP. You'll still be first in line to get your discs, so never fear.

So here we are, coming to the end of the process. It's been a wild year of writing, recording, mixing, and rerecording. Next week we pass along our mixes to Brian Hazard at Resonance Mastering and, from there, the CD pressing service. And from there to your hot little hands. The final track list is:

• Jolene - Dolly Parton
• Turn the Page - Bob Segar
• Bad Things - Jace Everret
• Safety Dance - Men Without Hats
• The Thrill Is Gone - B. B. King
• 2wicky - Hooverphonic
• Do You Really Want To Hurt Me? - Culture Club
• I Wanna Be Sedated - The Ramones
• Tarkus - Battlefield - Emerson, Lake, and Palmer
• What Don't You Do Right - Joe McCoy / Peggy Lee
• Magic Man - Heart
• Beautiful Accident - You're Pretty

Now, I know it's cliche for an artist to say "this is our best album EVAR", and I'm going to happily fall into that cliche. Undercover has come together in a truly amazing way, with everyone in the band pushing each other to reach farther and up their game. There was never that feeling of "well, that's good enough" -- no, even though it made me want to tear my meager hear out, Laura was rerecording entire songs just a few nights ago, and to great improvement. This will be the best sounding album we've released to date.

And although unmastered, we're ready for you to hear it. If you gave at $25 or above, you'll get a link shortly to listen to the whole album.

Hello backers! We've been rather silent since the initial hubub of the project, so with the passing of summer we thought we might give you a little update.

Preliminary Recording for Nine Tracks

We've roughed out nine tracks thus far, and they're sounding rather good. Some are a little farther along than others, but overall they are mostly a few extra parts away from being complete. In addition to these nine, we've got starts on three others, but they're in less completed shape. Our goal is to finish principle recording by the end of the year and finish mixing by mid-February to hit our March-ish release date.

If you're a backer at the $25+ level, expect a link in your email for the mixdowns on soundcloud!

Twelve tracks + eight track EP: Deeper Undercover

Given the clip at which we've been recording, we've decided to aim a bit high: we're going to try and finish twenty songs for this project! We're going to release the twelve we believe represent the best mix (including the four backer picked tunes) for the original Undercover. The other eight we are going to release later in the year as a digital-only EP called Deeper Undercover. If you gave at any level, you'll get this EP for free as a thank you for backing us! Yay fee stuff!

Not quite in the home stretch just yet but getting pretty close. Busy couple of months coming up!

First things first: THANK YOU! Making this album has been something we've been dreaming of for many years now. This wouldn't be happening if it weren't for you, our lovely fans and patrons.

Now, seeing as how you guys funded us in the first 24 hours of our project, we didn't spend March resting on our laurels -- we started work pretty much right away establishing a few songs for the album and getting the requests from our top donors. Here's what we have so far in no particular order:

• I Wanna Be Sedated - The Ramones
• Do You Really Want To Hurt Me - Culture Club
• Creep - Radiohead
• Beautiful Accident - You're Pretty
• The Thrill Is Gone - B.B. King
• Pumping For Jill - Iggy Pop
• Safety Dance - Men With Hats
• Battlefield - Emerson, Lake, and Palmer
• Sway - Dean Martin
• Bad Things - Jace Everett

This is by no means a definitive list. We're trying out a lot of these songs to see how well they come together and how they gel. Apart from the top donor requests, some of these songs might not make the final CD. Since recording time is essentially free for us, we're going to overdo it a bit and pick the songs that sound the best.

So what does this all mean? We're still looking for suggestions! Some of the more oddball songs (like Pumping For Jill) have been turning out quite amazing. But we need more ideas! Add them in the comments section of our KickStarter page:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/309285743/endless-blues-undercover-trip-hop-izing-your-favor/comments

Finally, you may notice that we ended up with more money than we asked for (141% funded to be exact). We're kicking around how best to spend this extra money. Beer has already been eliminated, leaving a few other options on the table:

• MOAR SONGS - We can cram some more tunes on the disc and pay the licensing
• Pro CD - Instead of well made CD-Rs we may spring for the glass mastered "real" CDs
• Pro Mastering - Mastering is the final step before sending the disc off to the plant for duplication and is the final "sweetener" to making an album sound really good. It's an arcane art that we're considering outsourcing to a pro.

At any rate we'll keep you posted as the album progresses.