The original (or “premix”) version of this song, which is featured on our debut EP, “Start a Fire,” is a sweet little love song. It ends with the second “we will push our hospital beds together” and everyone in the audience goes “awwww”. The last line on the album version, however, comes just after that and is the album’s big twist. I worried a little that it’s too subtle, but it’s really for the careful/active listeners I guess. It’s still a sweet little love song, but it’s also the fulcrum point for the whole story. I’d talk more about what it means, but I don’t want to give away the plot. I’ll just say that the last line in this song is THE MOST IMPORTANT LINE ON THE ALBUM. It’s the M. Night Shyamalan moment.

• Guante

This beat came from the same day or two in the summer of ‘07 when I made “Stockholm” and “Raindrops.” That’s my parents' piano on the main lick. Got some weird natural reverb/phasing going on due to the recording situation. I had no headphones and had to crank the monitors to play along to the track. That’s also me playing upright bass on it. Don’t remember where the drums are from. Might be live…? Who knows.

• Big Cats

Zombies are a big part of this album, though it’s never explicit. Lots of zombie imagery, stuff that could be taken in different ways, and this song is probably the best example of that. I did write the album with the idea that the “something” everyone was running from was zombie-related, but I also wanted to make sure that you could listen to the album, not hear that, and it’d still make sense. One of the cool things about all that uncertainty is that it muddies up the traditional zombie iconography. Is the main character a zombie, or trying to escape the zombies? Do the zombies represent the displaced, oppressed people, or the government displacing and oppressing them? There’s a lot of playing around with perspective here. Also: FAST RAPPING. Everyone likes fast rapping.

• Guante

I think sometimes Guante is so focused on being a dope writer and the message behind his music that he forgets how fun it can be to just RAP. So I had to make a track that he could rap double time on and straight kill it. I don’t remember where I got any of the samples for this one. I know that the synth bass is the built-in synth in reason 4. Haha, giving away all my rap secrets. Take notes kids.

• Big Cats

A quiet moment. Upon first listen, this is a song about the power of community and all that. Listen to the whole album and then come back to it, though, and it’s something very different, something much more sinister. I love that kind of stuff—the album is full of little easter-egg type things that mean one thing at first and then change once you figure out what’s going on. I really wanted to make an album that rewarded—and demanded—multiple listens. This might be my favorite beat on the album, too. Those whale noises in the background are just haunting.

• Guante

The instrumental outro on this track is another one of my favorite parts of the album. I made this beat, and then kinda forgot about it until Kyle wanted to use it for the record. When I came back to it, I was amazed by how dope the drum programming is at the end. Haha. I do not remember doing that at all, but damn it’s good. I also like this track because I feel like it’s one of the more uplifting, accessible songs on an otherwise dark, heavy record. Good Christian fun right there.

• Big Cats

I had no idea how this song was going to turn out, but it might be my favorite track on the album. The beat was originally labeled “crazy circus town” and it’s totally epic, my favorite kind of beat to write to. Chastity Brown is my favorite local singer, and she took the weird, rappy hook I wrote and made it pretty; the harmonies really make the song. And my favorite part of the entire project is the bridge, when our voices are overlapping. While the album as a whole isn’t as much about displacement and the movement of people as I had originally intended, this song is a holdover from that original thrust. It’s about how struggle can’t be contained; it can be delayed, but when people want something, or want to be somewhere they’re not, they’re going to get there. It’s only a matter of time and energy.

• Guante

Just like the last beat, this is one from my first record that was reworked for this project. Drums were redone, I replaced a filtered bass line by playing it and a couple elements were added; I was a little skeptical of this song when we were pulling together the tracklist for the album, but once I heard Chastity’s part, I was completely sold. It’s now one of my favorite tracks, with the ending being one of my favorite parts of the album.

• Big Cats

And the other side of the coin is the kind of song that has nothing at all to do with the overarching narrative, but adds to the themes, motifs and ideas of the album. The idea of the superhero is a major part of this album, but it’s usually pushed into the subtext. Is the main character a hero or villain? What are the responsibilities of both? What would you do if you had a great/terrible power? Etc. This song is more about rejecting traditional conceptions of heroism in favor of a more DIY approach to salvation. And the main character/narrator definitely buys into that, for better or worse.

• Guante

A beat off the first CD I ever put together. Again, it’s been reworked for the album, with the drums and bass both being completely redone. If you couldn’t tell, I really like going back to old beats and fixing them up. It’s fun to apply what you know now to the ideas you had then. This was one of the very first songs Guante and I worked on, before this album was even an idea. He originally rocked over the “Bass Traps” beat off of “Sleep Tapes.” This was one of the songs that made me think, "hmm, maybe this Guante dude is alright.”

• Big Cats

Speaking of the balance between straight-ahead storytelling and more metaphorical subtext stuff, this is a song that definitely fits into the former. It’s one of the album’s “signposts,” a song that really only works in the context of the other songs, since its subject matter is all about the big story. That being said, I think it’s still one of the prettier songs on the album. The beat is gorgeous, but it still has this undercurrent of dread running through it. I wanted to write a song about stopping for a moment in the middle of this long journey and spilling your guts to a completely random stranger. It moves the story along, but it’s also a nice scene.

• Guante

I made this beat the same day as “Stockholm.” All samples except for the bassline. Played that on the p-bass. I had just gotten back from a trip to Boston and Providence, and had a big stack of records from digging adventures with Prolyphic. This beat came out of that stack. It’s amazing how much you can get done when you have a (temporarily) endless supply of records to sample from. Strings and weird noises are from a Jean Luc Ponty record. Dude is a monster if you didn’t know.

• Big Cats

This is a weird song over a monstrously good beat. My hope is that it still works as a “banger” even though we’re all rapping about crazy shit instead of punching wack emcees in the face. Big Cats hooked up the Prolyphic feature. I’d never heard much beyond “Artist Goes Pop” from Pro, but I really like what he brought to this song—perfect straight-ahead storytelling. Then BQ go metaphorical, digging into the idea behind the song title; and then I try to tie the two threads together. I think it works out pretty great. Big Quarters are probably my favorite local rap group—I think they balance being poetic with being down-to-earth better than anyone.

• Guante

Pro tracked his vocals at his home through a Shure SM58, Guante did his verse through some old Lomo at Crazy Beast Studio, and Big Quarters did their verse on a U87 at my old apartment. I originally made this beat for the 2007 Scribble Jam battles. I made it, and a couple other beats on this record, in my parents’ basement in the summer of ‘07. That’s a Hugh Masekela vocal sample. I believe this is the first beat that I put the snare roll drum fill thing on. Started a very questionable but very fun trend in my beats. Haha.

• Big Cats

I think Haley Bonar is one of the best singer/songwriters in the country. As a vocalist, as a lyricist, as a live performer—she’s unbelievable. I wrote this song with her in mind, but the idea for this collaboration was one of those “in a perfect world” things I tell my label without ever thinking it’d actually happen. I guess I got lucky. I wrote the hook, in terms of the lyrics and melody, but Haley nailed it, pretty much on the first take. Another motif is introduced here too—the idea of a song that’s tying all these events together, and the idea that songs and prayers and spells are all kind of the same thing.

• Guante

Another older beat, dating back to January of 2008. The drums came from a jam session that Baby Gracious and I recorded. That’s him on the kit. This is also a beat that was worked on during some of the Sleep Tapes recording sessions with Ries. It features Eric on the spacey guitar stuff. Funny story about that. So, Eric is in the live room recording guitar feedback stuff through a tape echo, just real spooky atmospheric stuff. Well, while he’s in there, we blow the power for the whole studio. No lights, computer’s off, etc. Eric is stuck in the middle of the live room, surrounded by microphones, amps, instruments, and other really expensive things, and he can’t see anything. Dude had to sit still in the dark room until we got the power back on. Apparently our spooky guitars summoned ghosts or something. Haley Bonar on the hook. I had actually never heard her sing until she showed up at the session to record her part. Haha, turns out she can sing a little bit.

• Big Cats

As of this writing, we haven’t played this live yet, but it was definitely written as a live song. I love dynamics in hip hop songs—breakdowns, climaxes, crescendos, all that. I think the whole tension-and-release thing is a really important part of making memorable music, and a lot of hip hop just kind of ignores it in favor of straight-ahead loops or whatever. Lyrically, I wanted to write a song that set the scene and introduced the story without being too straightforward. I don’t usually get into impressionistic rap (just throwing a bunch of images together to create a mood), but this song is kind of in that vein. It also introduces the motif of “home,” which comes up a lot through the album.

-Guante

This beat has a lot of history. It’s one of the oldest beats on the album, originally made sometime in 2007. It has changed quite a bit from its original form. I put a sketch of the beat together at my home studio, and then recorded live drums, guitar and keys on it. The original tracking was done with Mike Ries (from our live band and Dragons Power Up!) during some of the first sessions for “Sleep Tapes”. The beat didn’t end up on Sleep Tapes because a couple different rappers were considering using it. Those fell through, and I showed it to Guante. Once Guante wrote to it and we decided to use it on the album, I began reworking it a bit. Eric (Blomquist) and I re-recorded the main sample, with Eric on guitar and keys, I redid the bass, and some other changes were made. It seemed like a logical first track because of the long ass intro, and the fact that it sets the mood, both musically and lyrically, for the rest of the record.

• Big Cats

AN UNWELCOME GUEST is a hip hop concept album from Twin Cities producer BIG CATS! and rapper GUANTE. Over fifteen tracks, the album tells the story of one man moving from east to west in the wake of a man-made disaster and his own personal tragedy. Also, there are zombies.