Constant Smiles
Over the last half decade, the music collective Constant Smiles has produced a prolific output of acclaimed music, culminating in their forthcoming record Kenneth Anger, masterfully brought to life by engineer Jonathan Schenke (Parquet Courts, Liars, Dougie Pool). The group is known most recently for their much-praised debut album for Sacred Bones records, Paragons, an emotionally resonant offering of indie folk masterpieces that all confront the internal ways we process our struggles with intimacies, addiction and humanity - produced by Ben Greenberg.
Constant Smiles, led by Ben Jones, began in 2009 on his home of Martha’s Vineyard, inspired by the music scene centered around the island’s now defunct community record store, Aboveground Records. They made their live debut as a noise duo opening for Ralph White (Bad Livers) and, working in series, began churning out homemade releases influenced by friends, art film icons, and fellow musicians.
In the time since, Constant Smiles have amassed a discography a couple dozen releases deep, containing contributions from more than 50 members of its extended family. Along the way, the group has shared stages with Molly Nilsson, Black Marble, Oneida, Editrix, Frank Hurricane, Olden Yolk, and Purple Pilgrims; their shows are endlessly unique experiences for which Jones has a tendency of writing whole set’s worth of new material.