Photo courtesy of DJ Silky Smooth

Last time we checked in with Jacob Schwartz of DJ Silky Smooth on these very digital pages, the Greater Boston native was back living around here and hanging out at all the usual Allston basements. However as many do, Schwartz moved back to New York post-lockdown to rejoin his bandmates (to reiterate, DJ Silky Smooth is just a clever name for a four piece indie rock band), and with the power of greater proximity, the group has acclimated themselves quite nicely to the ever-vibrant Brooklyn scene. It turns out Schwartz was quietly piecing together the latest DJ Silky Smooth record between that big move, and now its release is nearly upon us. I’m Glad For Life functions kind of like a compilation, with tracks that date as far back as 2018 muscling up against material written in late 2022. However, Schwartz (who largely records and arranges DJ Silky Smooth albums alone before bringing them to his three bandmates, who then translate the songs in different way live) plots a thematic through line here, tying these tracks together in a way that makes for a funny, but also emotionally stirring listen. With influences ranging from the typical bedroom pop playbook to more robust pop songcraft like XTC and Argentine shoegaze group Soda Stereo, the end result is a batch of songs that mark a songwriter tinkering on their own path. A self-professed lover of “dinky” samples, Schwartz builds a unique world of sounds on I’m Glad For Life, folding in hip hop drums, orchestra hits, and autotune to create music that certainly nods to plenty of forebears, but comes at them at weird and unique angles. This is indie rock for sure, but rendered in a way that feels truly different and very online. 

We hopped on the phone with Schwartz recently and he graciously walked us through each track on the DJ Silky Smooth album, so hit play on the early stream and read along below.

Dear Poopy

This song was the result of me tuning the high E string down to D. “Reverse drop-d” is what I hope Gen Z will call it. I wrote and recorded it in my grandparents’ basement on Long Island in 2018, making it the oldest DJ Silky Smooth track from the album. The lyrics stem from the irrational notion I had growing up that if I let my arms hang over the side of my bed at night, someone or something could bite me. I didn’t originally have it sequenced as the first song, but in the end, I realized it could be a short and sweet intro to the album and I like the way things shift abruptly afterwards, with “Drool” coming on. If you don’t like it, the good news is that it’s only a minute long. Also, I do not know what possessed me to call it “Dear Poopy”. I just type in random words when I have to save logic sessions and that’s what came out. 

Drool

I recorded this song in late 2021, and was convinced it was not worth putting on an album for a while. My friend Avery repeatedly texted me that I had to put it out, and convinced me. “Drool” began with just a  hi-hat loop, which I made by stretching and pitching a sample across the keyboard spectrum and then playing notes across a few octaves. The rest is kind of a blur. The writing and recording happened very quickly. I don’t usually have harmonics as a part of my guitar riffs, and I remember feeling really pumped about including those. Around that time, I was going through a breakup that made me feel insecure, which is reflected in the lyrics, which talk about an unhealthy infatuation. For the last year, my single piece of merch has been hats with the Drool wrench logo. I call them “Drool Hats.”

Stox

I thought it would be fun to make a song using business buzzwords sort of out-of-context. Like other songs on the album, Stox has a mix of fiction and real introspection. I am not a finance bro. I don’t trade stocks or understand what cryptocurrency is. I don’t know what the word “dividends” means, but I guess that didn’t stop me from using it as a lyric. However, the finance/business world of southern Manhattan does speak to me as a sort of gray place where everyone walks around in a suit and tie, and it seemed like a good setting to channel some feelings of loneliness and the desire to belong. The guitar in “Stox” is tuned to open D major, which I’d highly recommend any guitar player to try if you haven’t yet. My favorite part of producing this song was adding the echoey background pianos. Overall, I was going for a New Radicals “You Get What You Give” type of sound. I absolutely love that song; It just hits so immediately. Joe Sutkowski, a.k.a. Dirt Buyer really nailed verse 2 and I can’t imagine the song without him on it now. He’s a great friend and I feel honored that he made a verse for the song. 

Let Me Go Back To Sleep

“Reverse drop-d” makes its second appearance here. I wrote this one while working at a music store in Newton, MA in the summer of 2019, while dealing with some heartbreak. My favorite lyric is definitely “it’s hot as balls, I wipe the floor.” It just feels very *me*. I was already bummed out, my boss made me wipe the floor and on top of that, it was just hot as balls that day in the store. Anyways, I think sonically it sits in the same zone as “Dear Poopy”, in that I recorded it very simply, just using DI’d electric guitar and some 808s for the most part. 

Floaty

I saw a YouTube doc about a man who survived a plane crash and floated in the ocean for days. He was stung by dozens of jellyfish, saw sharks, and almost died numerous times, but by chance he found a log to float on, and eventually was found. How true is this story, you may ask? I don’t know. Sorry. However, “Floaty” was written with that story in mind. While working at that music store later that year, someone came in once and just gave us a classical guitar they’d found in their attic that they had no use for. I ended up using this guitar to record Floaty. I particularly had a lot of fun producing the middle section of the track, which has some trap drums and bendy synths. I love making music sometimes.

Bird

One day during the early lockdown portion of the pandemic, I was laying on my bed trying to sleep around 6am, and there were some birds making quite a racket. Around that time, I was feeling cranky and lonely as a result of the whole sequestering-inside thing, and it almost felt like those birds were mocking me; that’s what I ended up singing about here. Production was incredibly fun because I got to use my “orchestra hit” sample that I got off YouTube. I tried to make the drum samples sound a bit like “Woof Woof” by Arthur. My bandmate Ryan Accardi also added some insane harmonies for the chorus, and he is such a genius. 

June 30

The lone track featuring actual drums, recorded with actual microphones. Jason Block, who has been drumming in the band since 2019, had not appeared on a DJ Silky Smooth recording until now. I love how this one turned out. I got a blues jr. amp in 2020, and this was the first time I tried mic’ing it up for a song. The drums were recorded on June 30th, 2020, hence the track name. The song was supposed to include vocals for a long time, but after a while, I gave up and decided it was fine as an instrumental. This song and “Stox” were the two songs mixed by my bandmate Jack Mullin, who is so good at everything, and has been my advisor throughout the whole album process. 

Simeone

My friend was driving across the country a few summers ago, from Santa Fe to Providence. We talked on the phone as she was passing through Salina, Kansas. I was intrigued by the name Salina and I felt that it rolled off the tongue. Lyrically, it’s very brief–just four lines of what I imagined Salina might be like, and some Jiffy Lube® and Taco Bell® product placement. At some point, the name of the song changed from “Salina” to “Simeone”, named after the longtime coach of the Atlético de Madrid football club. The song has nothing to do with him, or Los Rojiblancos. I’m not sure why I did that. Though even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you, cause It’s really none of your business! So there.

Concorde

Concorde is loosely inspired by the 2018 Horizon Air Q400 incident, in which an airport ground service worker stole, flew and crashed an empty airplane in Seattle. I really like putting myself in fictional situations in my songs, and then injecting them with some real emotions. In “Concorde”, I am a commercial airline pilot who has gone mad, and is treating the flight like a video game, scaring and endangering his crew and passengers. I also have a bit of a fear of flying, so I guess this is all something for my therapist and I to unpack together. I think I must have also been listening to Pinback a bunch around the time I made it, because it ended up having a bit of that vibe especially in the b-section. At the end of the song, you can hear some pilots and JFK air traffic controllers talking to each other, which I recorded live off the internet. If that is illegal, then no, I did not do that, and I was actually kidding.

You Couldn’t

Without going into specifics, at one point I had an older boss at my job who liked to…“debate”. His style of debate was one in which disagreeing with him was frowned upon, if not prohibited. He had a lot of strong opinions about political correctness, women, music these days, etc. I often found myself wanting to say to him, you couldn’t possibly mean what you’re saying, right? Musically, Alex G’s album House of Sugar was a big inspiration here. Like “Floaty”, this song also has a middle section where I had a good time experimenting with production, throwing in some trap sounds and 808s. 

County Pool

This is the newest song on the album. Near my parents’ house, there is a public pool called the Gath Pool. I remember on a hot summer night in high school, walking by the Gath and seeing that some kids had climbed over the fence and snuck in for a swim. I was so jealous. In real life, I was too much of a goodie two shoes to pull off something like that, but in “County Pool”, I am one of the cool kids who have the audacity to sneak into the Gath on a hot and sticky night, for a refreshing dip. At the very end, I attempted a George Martin style harpsichord solo a la “In My Life”.

Secret Track

“Secret Track” is a song that was borrowed from my side project, Jazz2D2. More specifically, it was part of a very short concept album called Calcutron, in which a calculator is struck by lightning, and subsequently gains superpowers, which he then uses to save the world. Towards the end of the album, our hero Calcutron falls in love with a toaster. So, to reiterate, it is not I, DJ Silky Smooth, that is in love with a toaster, but in fact, it is Calcutron, the super calculator. I will not be answering any further questions about this song, and I would hope that you respect my wishes in this regard.

Tough Love

During early lockdown, Moog made their Model D app free on iPhone. I tinkered around with this keyboard sound and made a little loop that became the foundation for “Tough Love”. I was getting a bit into hyperpop at the time, and that pushed me to experiment more with production and instrumentation. I also added a couple of pads from a Jupiter software synth plug-in by Arturia, which I cannot recommend enough. I found myself feeling vulnerable while recording the lyrics I wrote about loneliness and disagreements, and pitching the vocals up helped, and I also just find it fun and different.

I’m Glad For Life is out everywhere Tuesday, March 28th.