Swati Bhatt Plans India Tour for Evocative New EP ‘Embrace’

When singer-songwriter Swati Bhatt released her single “Embrace” in early 2024, it was her first release in four years. By November, the artist released two more singles – “Night Queen” and “Paper Boats” to complete her second EP, called Embrace.

Bhatt says over an email interview that the entire road to putting out new material has been a “deeply personal journey of crafting a complete and cohesive narrative.” To that end, the three-track Embrace is all about self-love, resilience and “longing for connection.” Along the way, we got anagrams and a Wordle-style puzzle for Bhatt to keep her fans engaged. For Bhatt, the music had to do the talking, though. Her best route – sincerity. She says, “I’ve always written songs with the belief that I have a story to tell and I’ll tell it with sincerity and if my art moves me, it’s likely to move someone else.”

With “Embrace” there are nimble and tender flourishes that reflect the emotional message of self-acceptance and “healing from past wounds.” There are somewhat subtle Indian traditional music influences heard in the cadence of vocal melodies and percussion elements on “Night Queen,” which she describes as being about “finding strength in resilience” and Bhatt takes a more traditional singer-songwriter approach with acoustic guitar on the Rabindranath Tagore-inspired “Paper Boats,” about “discovering where I truly belong.” Thematically, the artist says creating Embrace EP “helped me navigate and make sense of my inner world.”

The catharsis felt most prominent for the artist on “Embrace,” with Bhatt saying it marked the beginning of her healing process. “I needed to hear that message from myself, and creating that song felt like a personal act of healing,” she adds.

It helps that she had the able mind of fusion act Snarky Puppy’s Bob Lanzetti on production duties, giving the songs off Embrace a dexterous yet sincere touch. Bhatt recalls the unexpected way that Lanzetti came to join the project. “I was taking a songwriting course with [singer-songwriter] Becca Stevens and shared some of my songs. She played them to Michael League from Snarky Puppy, and before I knew it, he reached out to me on Instagram asking if I had more tracks. Naturally, I said yes! Michael then introduced me to Bob, and that’s how our collaboration began,” Bhatt says.

Through the process of working remotely with musicians like Lanzetti and others in different parts of the world, Bhatt learned to be “really patient with the whole process” of songcraft and realized that perhaps working long distance can enhance creativity in new ways.

Another key dimension to presenting the message behind Embrace was the visual narrative that Bhatt created with filmmaker and photographer Mohit Tiwari. She says, “I’m a very visually driven creator, and while composing, I often find myself already visualizing the color palette, elements, and something I call ‘Flag Points’ — the phases or chapters that guide the song’s progression. From the very beginning, I create mood boards to keep track of all my ideas, editing and revising them as I go.” From using water motifs to represent fluidity on “Embrace” to referencing the Parijat flower’s inspiration and fire on “Night Queen” as well as verdant tones for “Paper Boats,” Bhatt says they got to “truly reflect the emotions and themes of the song.”

While working on promoting the release has been a learning curve for Bhatt, she does plan to take the material live soon enough. She says, “I’m planning a five-city tour early next year with my band to promote the EP and finally bring these songs to life on stage. I’ve waited far too long for this, and I can’t wait to experience that energy again.”

In addition to the tour, Bhatt is already prepping her next single, her first Hindi song, slated for release in February. “I’ve also got some collaboration releases lined up throughout the year, and there will be merch inspired by the music,” she says.