Hey kids, physical media! The people asked for Catchdini’s album IRL and we obliged. (We’ll let the man himself take it from here…)

About a year ago I put out my album Smoke Machine, and people kept hitting me up about pressing it on CD ever since. So in place of a cake, we’ll celebrate with twelve tracks on compact disc, along with the More Smoke remix EP as a bonus, extra illustrations from cover artist Niv Bavarsky, and some shout-outs and hidden messages. Get your copy now at the FG store, and geek on some liner notes while you’re at it!

Smoke Theme
I used to take the Chinatown bus to Boston and make music with my friends going to school up there. We had a band of sorts… never put on a proper show but played together often at a rehearsal complex called Jamspot (LOL!) featuring the then-novel technology of burning your practices to CD-R. All the samples are cut up from those recordings… as soon as I found those discs I knew I had to use them for the intro somehow. Full circle!

Full House feat Troy Ave and Heems
Beat made on my couch, vocals recorded in the B Room of Rubber Tracks in Brooklyn. (Troy wore a fur coat and I drank too much iced coffee concentrate.) Featured in the motion picture Dirty Grandpa while Academy Award winning actor Robert DeNiro talks about purple drank.

Chromed Out feat Nasty Nigel, Prince SAMO & Cody B Ware
Maybe my favorite of the handful of tracks I’ve made with the guys from World’s Fair. (And Proper Villains! This started out as a beat we made in his basement studio in Bushwick.) Vox also recorded at Rubber Tracks. It pleases me that I was able to sneak a guitar solo in there.

Tick Tick Bounce
All the wonky little interlude beats on Smoke Machine really “make” the album for me. There’s tons of incorrect plug-in usage (pro tip: beatbox with Guitar Rig 5) and chopped up iPhone voice notes. Mr Gif flipped this one in 3D!

Bizness feat IAMSU & Jay Ant
I met Jay and Su in San Francisco when we flew out to make a video for Donnis’ “Absolutely” (shout out Josh Wehle) and then they hopped on this song. Thanks to the nice people at JASH I was able to make a video for this with Scott Jacobson, featuring a bunch of comedians (including Rich Fulcher of Mighty Boosh fame and Ron Funches of everything fame) getting their spazz on.

Drop feat ShowYouSuck
Original title of this beat was “Army Party.” Snares snares snares. This also has a music video, directed by Steamclam, inspired by Beetlejuice and the works of Robert Zombie. Show is a top notch human, we have another song together where he raps about the movie Airheads but the session file got corrupted… like Robocop, I will rebuild him!

Hell Yeah
Featuring the vocal stylings of Grace and Jess (better known as Jubilee to people who like dancing). Another Rubber Tracks session, conveniently located down the street from Fool’s Gold. Bless u Converse.

D.T.B.
As seen in the Broad City finale when Ilana forgets to pack. I wish that yell was part of the record.

Wuts That feat B.I.C.
BX, baby! These guys smoke a lot of weed.

Lose Control feat Roach Gigz
This started out as a beat with my dude 2 Beeps and morphed into something else completely by the time I ended up turning the album in. A typical story… Smoke Machine was a record put together in fits and starts over a loooooong timeline. It feels cohesive (to me anyway) and the write ups were encouraging, but I look forward to completing future releases in a more immediate fashion. No fine wine before its time, Orson. Anyway, Roach has one of my favorite flows on the whole record:

Treal TV what I’m fuckin watchin
“I’m not fucking high, I’m fucking awesome”
I read it on a shirt somewhere, until I’m in the dirt somewhere
I’m living like I don’t personally care
So gimme a “HEY” and a couple “OH YEAH”s
Oh yeah…

Heartbeat Jeep feat Go Dreamer & Mach Five
All the guests on my album are people I’ve met through DJing and traveling. We’ve got New York, Chicago, LA and the Bay represented, as well as some Atlanta boys on this one. Freaknik gone futuristic… I like when the title of the initial instrumental ends up as the final hook of the song. (That’s why you never label your shit “Beat001”!)

Run feat MNDR
Amanda killed this. She recorded her hook very, very early in the process of making the album… I could have added a guest, or a drop, or any number of things to the tune, but those vocals were absolutely perfect the way they are. (Shout out to DJ A for the encouragement to keep it simple, and Soundtoys for my favorite pitch tool Little AlterBoy.)