Main Squeeze Keyboardist Smile High Shares 'The Vibetape'

This past Friday, LA-based producer/keyboardist Smile High shared his highly anticipated LP The Vibetape, a dynamic fusion of RnB, jazz, funk and hip-hop, in collaboration with internationally known jam band The Main Squeeze. Featuring over a dozen vocalists, including 6LACK, Chuck Inglish, Tiffany Gouché and Felly, the ten-track project cements Smile High (AKA Ben “Smiley” Silverstein) as a need-to-know producer and A&R.

Smiley, who got his nickname from his “resting smile face,” co-founded The Main Squeeze while studying at Indiana University, and has been the band’s keyboardist since its inception. Spontaneous jam sessions were a hallmark of the band’s founding, and they’ve maintained this emphasis in the decade-plus that followed, whether in Indiana, Chicago or their current home of Los Angeles.

The studio sessions for The Vibetape were assembled with the intent of breaking a pattern of excessive seriousness in LA’s music scene, which Smile High & the Squeeze began to notice as they partook in industry sessions and went to concerts. On The Vibetape, the band created space for collaborators to express themselves freely and without fear of judgment, resulting in a warm, cohesive body of work that feels like an afternoon barbecue with friends.

“I've always found the most joy in collaborating with others and combining what I do best with what other people do best, and just being pleasantly surprised with the end result,” shares Smiley. “That's always been the essence of what I've been doing, and The Vibetape is truly the culmination of that.”

The first single from The Vibetape—“Real” (ft. Tiffany Gouché & Abhi the Nomad - arrived September 29 and the band has released singles on a weekly basis since. Each track has been accompanied by a visualizer shot at the Squeeze House, in a series they call the “Treehouse Sessions.”

Singles from The Vibetape have received widespread critical acclaim on streaming and at press. Breakout single “Kinks” (ft. 6LACK & QUIN) has already amassed over 500K streams, with NPR adding the song to their New Music Friday playlist and VIBE Magazine calling it “a riveting, soulful record.” Several other singles have landed prominent placements on key DSP editorials, with “To the Moon” (ft. Chloe Angelides) recently landing the No. 5 slot on Spotify’s Fresh Finds R&B tastemaker playlist.

The Vibetape is Smiley’s second project with Nettwerk of 2023, following April’s Snack Pack LP (HERE), a chillhop-jazztronica fusion project created with instrumentalists Horace Bray and Teddy Roxpin. 

The Vibetape is available at digital retailers here: https://smilehigh.ffm.to/thevibetape.

ABOUT SMILE HIGH

Smile High is the solo project from veteran pianist and producer Ben Silverstein. Honing his talents as a musician by playing the keyboard for funk-soul-rock fusion band The Main Squeeze, Silverstein has more than a decade under his belt of experience in the industry.

With The Main Squeeze, he’s toured across the world, performing on some of the biggest stages and festivals in the US and Europe like Bonnaroo and Electric Forest, and touring with impressive names such as George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic, and The String Cheese Incident, and now he’s ready to reintroduce himself with The Vibetape.

 The name “Smile High” is a portmanteau of Silverstein’s personal nickname “Smiley” (which comes from his “resting smile” face) and the Smile High Club, a concept that represents the low-pressure atmosphere of the jam sessions he’s now curated for over a decade, and the tight-knit bond between its members.  

With the help of his Main Squeeze bandmates and over a dozen featured artists including 6LACK, Chuck Inglish of The Cool Kids, Felly, and Tiffany Gouché, Smiley has specially curated a laid-back vibe for his new album The Vibetape, a fusion of hip-hop, funk and R&B certain to bring listeners to simpler times.

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