Joe Williams, the Cleveland born 24-year old behind White Williams, played piano from a young age, often being scolded by his piano teacher for making his own sounds and messing with the pedals. By the age of 15 he was drumming for a noisy scream band whose first show was opening up for Black Dice and the Rapture. Playing in DIY venues exposed Joe Williams to a wild party lifestyle of fires, noise bands, art and performance. With a growing interest in electronic music, he started making music on his computer incorporating samples, triggered drums and machines, and formed his first electronic music project, So Red, in 2001. Since then White Williams has toured with Gregg Gillis’ Girl Talk and Dan Deacon, and found himself gravitating towards pop music with the use of vocals and physical instruments. White Williams became enamored with learning about the studio situations of his favorite albums of the 70’s and 80’s. This shows up in Smoke, where many of the sounds are algorithmically generated, guitars and vocals repitched, copied and pasted, and sometimes heavily edited or not edited when they should be. The result is a truly modern – yet at certain moments nostalgic – collection of irresistible pop songs.