Photo Courtesy of the Band

Attention sports fans: your all-time defeat song has finally arrived. 

It’s true, MA/NY based indie pop foursome DJ Silky Smooth have written an ode to lowered (athletic) expectations for the ages. With “Learning League,” DJ Silky Smooth’s now-locally-based fronter Jacob Schwartz waxes nostalgic about his days in a beginner’s recreation basketball league. All knobby knees and ill-fitting athletic gear, the baller at the center is pretty far from this oft-cited Kurtis Blow classic. The charms of “League” instead lie in the band’s ability to distill that gawkiness into something sonically clever, relatable, and understatedly funny. While Schwartz spends most of their 2019 album of the same name trying to play things cool—whether it’s donning denim jackets or trolling for fist fights—there’s always a similar sort of winking reveal. In fact, he’s more often feeling uncomfortable at sleepover camp and anxious about the world around him. That uneasiness is kind of where this songs lives: 

“It’s about this after school basketball league I was in called the Learning League, where nobody was allowed to steal the ball from you. We thought it would be fun to have a video where we play basketball with our friends since we’re all kinda bad at sports,” said Schwartz.

Shot in Hastings on Hudson, NY (and directed by Josh Govier and Orion Perenyi) it plays something like a less-than-proud parent’s goofy home video of a youth basketball game. Between the Silky Smooths and rival band/team Red we catch at least ten traveling violations, a handful of flagrant fouls, and precious few successful baskets. A makeshift box score falls in line with the homespun feel of the video, not unlike a pickup game between friends that can’t or won’t keep track of each other’s score. In their world, we can all play referee. 

Learning League is out now on streaming services and available digitally on Bandcamp. You can also grab a tape via New Perfume there or at their next local show in Allston this Thursday, January 16th. Go ahead and drop DJ Silky Smooth a message for more details.