Pitchfork

Between touring with Kanye West, starting a clothing line, and his remix work, A-Trak already has quite an impressive resume. And now, thanks to a partnership with New York DJ Nick Catchdubs, he can re-add "label owner" to his list of job titles for the first time since the demise of his previous label, Audio Research.

A-Trak and Catchdubs' new label is called Fool's Gold. They have enlisted graphic artist Dust La Rock to design the label's logos and sleeves, and A-Trak's brother and former Audio Research partner (Chromeo's Dave 1) will also play a role behind the scenes.

Fool's Gold's focus will be on releasing hip hop, electro, and music that combines and borrows from both genres in new ways. And when it comes to release schedules, Catchdubs said in an interview with Pitchfork that the two want Fool's Gold "to be like when Rawkus first came out and was dropping 12"s every month. That's what we're shooting for."

They're on their way to that goal with their first release, Kid Sister's Armani XXXChange-produced "Control" single. The 12" will come out this month, with the A-Trak-produced "Damn Girl" on the B-side along with DJ Gant-Man's juke remix of "Damn Girl".

The second Fool's Gold release will be a bootleg 12" of select tracks and blends from A-Trak's Dirty South Dance mixtape, and an EP by Chicago rap duo the Cool Kids will follow that. The Cool Kids EP will feature four songs: "88", "I Rock", "Gold and a Pager", and a new one they are recording now.

The next two releases will be 12" singles by Bay Area DJ Trackademicks and Parisian electro producer Kavinsky, whose 12" release will coincide with his opening spot on Daft Punk's North American tour with the Rapture this summer.

Releases in the Fool's Gold future include work with London house producer Sinden, a DJ Gant-Man EP, a single from Chicago MC and Friend-of-Kanye GLC, and albums by Kid Sister, the Cool Kids, Trackademicks, and A-Trak himself.

A-Trak told Pitchfork that his album, which he hopes to release at the beginning of next year, is evenly split between instrumentals and collaborations with MCs, "but what I'm working on in the next couple of months for myself is a lot of official remixes for other groups, because I feel like I need to get more awareness of my production out there."

Finally, A-Trak touched on another piece of the Fool's Gold puzzle that hearkens back to the golden days of Rawkus Records: compilations. "There are a lot of artists out there that we want to work with one way or another, but all of them might not be able to make an album, so we could simply use their songs on a compilation and give them some help that way. The whole side of the label that has to do with bridging that gap between rap and electronic, that's really something that we could make explicit with compilations, where there are certain songs that are straight rap and some that are straight electronic and some, like the Kid Sister stuff, that fall in between the genres. Seeing the scope of all that in one CD will really make a clear picture of the way the label is bridging those sounds."

Both Fool's Gold founders have a few DJ dates in April and May.

A-Trak dates:

04-13 Chicago, IL - Smart Bar *
04-20 New York, NY - Studio B
04-28 Indio, CA - Coachella (Anthem private party)
05-11 Baltimore, MD - Sonar

* with Flosstradamus

Catchdubs dates:

04-18 Chicago, IL - Subterranean (Fool's Gold showcase) *
04-28 New York, NY - TBA (Manhattan warehouse)
05-05 New York, NY - Home Sweet Home
05-15 New York, NY - Highline Ballroom #

* with Kid Sister, the Cool Kids, Flosstradamus
# with Ghostface Killah, Spank Rock, Roxy Cottontail