Watch: Behind the sounds with Catnapp

Even though Catnapp has been making music since childhood, she admits she toyed with the idea of doing something else with her life—fashion, or perhaps design. But it’s her passion for channeling multitude of ideas and styles into her music that gives the Buenos Aires native her signature sound. It combines elements of R&B, rap, breakbeat, pop, and drum & bass for what might best be summed up as moody electro-hip hop—intense, high energy, yet melodic and melancholic.

Launching Catnapp in 2010 as a hard-edged drum & bass and breakbeat project, real name Amparo Battaglia left her home country in 2015, relocating to Berlin. She’s performed around the world, and released a multitude of singles and EPs, and two LPs. She also participated in the Red Bull Music Academy Bass Camp, and her collaboration with Marciano’s Crew, “Today Tomorrow,” was included on the soundtrack to Focus, a film starring Will Smith.

For her sample pack, created in her home studio with a combination of hardware synths like the Roland GAIA and software MASCHINE and Ableton, Catnapp says she tried to give a little piece of herself away—but not too much. Instead of building the pack from scratch, she collected sounds she’d previously created and loved, but couldn’t find a place for. Pop-sheen vocals mix with undulating electro-heavy bass lines, high-energy breakbeat loops, icy claps and snares, and aggressively distorted and layered synths. The result is a collection of loops, beats and vocals that allow creators to build and expand on Catnapp’s diverse style—one that’s as expansive as it is unique.