Last month, SMLE caught the world by storm with their smooth and emotional remix of Owl City’s “Fireflies.” The remix truly speaks for itself, every passing note lifting you into a gentle world of catchy-chill synths, cut-up vocals, and future bass. It’s overall construction is unpredictable, making it no surprise that the track went on to collect 300,000 plays, a huge achievement for any group, but especially so given the SMLE has only started releasing music three months ago.
So what’s the story behind this hidden group with a huge sound? While the members of SMLE are remaining anonymous regarding their home-base and identities, we do know they are a duo whom are far from new to the music game.
“Both of us grew up as trained musicians, both jazz and classical, and have been playing instruments for basically all of our lives. We play [on the professional level] drums, bass, piano, and guitar. Between that and being brought up in a studio environment for basically our entire lives, it was only a matter of time before we committed full time to this profession in music.“
SMLE’s history has soon-to-be-superstars written all over it. The more diverse one’s music background the quicker they rise the ranks in the electronic music scene, generally speaking. SMLE is currently focusing on the chill side of electronic music – as well as future bass, a relatively new genre that’s been exploding in 2014 and a genre that WRR is covering extensively.
“[Before] we made a lot of house and trap music mainly but we pretty much made anything and everything we could. Eventually our jazz and hip hop roots caught up to us and we started to incorporate those type of elements way more into our sound and groove, and thus SMLE was born.”
In light of SMLE’s recent sucess, the duo have recently felt the love of the community, some of which were long time influences of the mystery duo,
“We’ve received an overwhelming amount of support at the launch of the SMLE project which we are ever so grateful for. Some early supporters of our project include talented producers/artists such as Owl City, Digital Lab, $aturn, ABSRDST, and SteLouse. We’re heavily influenced by artists such as our good friend Just a Gent, as well as amazing producers like Tennyson and Haywyre. Other heavy influences include musicians/composers such as Kaki King, Chris Dave and Corey Henry (of Snarky Puppy) all who, through their own unique sounds, left a mark on what we call the SMLE sound.”
WRR and SMLE have partnered to deliver a special exclusive mix for WRR readers, new music lovers, and everyone in between. Discovering new, young artists and being apart of their growth is arguably the greatest gift a music fanatic could ask for. SMLE is not just apart of a new generation of sick up-and-comers, but harness above average talent for the category they fall under. Judge for yourself via SMLE’s “WRR Exclusive Mix” below.
Tracklist
Robert Glasper Experiment – Afro Blue (9th Wonder’s Blue Light Basement Remix feat Phonte)
Tennyson – Violet Alturas
Frwn – Hello
Sh?m – Serendipity
Pomo – Work It Out
Robert Glasper – Move Love (Kaytranada Edition)
Grant Smillie, Zoe Badwi, Walden – A Million Lights (DCUP Remix)
Destinys Child – Bug A Boo (Ganz Flip)
Earth Wind & Fire – Boogie Wonderland (SMLE Remix)
SMLE – Through Change (Original Mix)
SMLE & Janpier – With You ft. Mary Ellen
Haywyre – Smooth Criminal
Carl Cox – Sentimiento Latino (Original Mix)
Lindsay Lowend – Gt40 (ABSRDST Remix)
$aturn – Forest of Wonder
Slugabed – Moonbeam Rider
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