We Speak Music
Smag På Dig Selv Release A Viking Anthem For The Autumn Season- ‘Let’s Go!’
Danish trio Smag På Dig Selv (SPDS) return with ‘Let’s Go!’, the second single from their upcoming album to be released in March 2026. The track is a Viking anthem wrapped in electronic chaos, throat singing and electro punch produced by hyped, charting Danish producer TMI Tammi.
‘Let’s Go!’ was composed in the October 2024, when the band retreated to Albert’s 200 year-old summer cottage in the idyllic landscapes of North Zealand for a writing week. Originally, the plan was to create techno, but the autumnal, Bon Iver-like atmosphere shifted the mood. Instead, the musicians leaned into simply being a band, playing together in silence and letting the music speak. What emerged was a compromise between their initial intention and a newfound urge to explore the idea of an “ambient Viking band” – all brought to life with Carmen’s unmistakably maximalist production.
Since their debut in 2018, Smag På Dig Selv, consisting of Oliver Lauridsen (tenor sax), Thorbjørn Øllgaard (baritone and bass sax, vocals), and Albert Holberg (drums), have established themselves as one of Denmark’s most uncompromising and captivating live acts. With their explosive mix of acoustic techno, punk energy, and 90s dance, they have played everything from Roskilde Festival over SummerStage in Central Park, New York to showcase festivals such as SXSW, The Great Escape and Eurosonic.
After their debut album ‘SPDS’ from 2024 cemented them as one of the most boundary pushing groups on the Danish scene, the trio is now ready for the next step: a new album in March 2026 followed by the spectacular Christiania World Tour, where they will present the material in the heart of the Freetown, where the band itself was formed. With ‘Let’s Go!’, Smag På Dig Selv continue their mission to challenge the simple set up and musical output made from two saxophones and drums.
Michele Ducci has unveiled the second single, ‘Woman Like You’, from his forthcoming album and animated film ‘Snail in the Clouds’.
‘Woman Like You’ pairs bright distorted electric guitar with an electronic drumbeat, adding in Ducci’s soulful vocals and a catchy uplifting chorus with Letizia Mandoleisi’s sweet vocal harmonies. A vintage organ pedalboard operated by Ducci simultaneously generates chords, bass and rhythm, like a one-man band. Shane Kennedy (Girl in the Year Above) joins in on guitar. Simon Milner (Is Tropical, Ysing) recorded and produced the track at his 4am Studios in London.
The album and film tell the story of a planet called ‘Snail’, inhabited by hybrids – primarily a mixture between scorpions, snails and humans – who lead a life according to the style of Pythagoras, devoted to music. There is also a cloud man named Agostos, a writer of musical operettas, who together with a talking smoke machine called Doctor Subtilis, begins to kill all hybrids, targeting in particular the hybrid musician Diodoros and his band, in an effort to steal the ark of melodies, an ancient ship that allows the whole planet to survive with music and joy.
The video for the single, created and animated by Ducci and Mandoleisi, delves further into the realm of planet ‘Snail’:
Says Ducci, “The ark of melodies, after various attempts, finally starts to work and fly in the planet Snail, while the shady Doc. Sub. and Agostos, with their platoon of soldiers made of foggy smoke, spy the miracle, planning to steal the ark for their evil and tyrannical purposes.”
About the track, Michele says, “I wrote this song for my love Letizia. Love seen from the mind is the sound we make. Sound is the love of matter.
We used a Technics synthesizer organ from a flea market. I tried to find a mood that was right for the song and I started using the bass of the pedal board together with the synth and the drums, and it was magical to hear the song reveal itself all coming from a single instrument. Leti was singing with me and we recorded everything live in one shot. Then we made Shane do the guitar flight, as if he came out of the window. The idea was to maintain disproportions, guitar thrust and synth drum thinness a la Haroumi Hosono, so as to create an estrangement, but naturally: it’s about how I listen, with close up something that captures me in its nuance as element of a larger orchestra somewhere. I’m glad we decided in the studio with Simon to use the layers of arrangement as the close-ups in the cinema; they look like strange enlargements that perch on parts of a mutated orchestra. I’m happy to come back with this love song at a time when everything seems to opt, even my labor in managing the flows of selfishness that have poured out on me while doing this album, for the sound of war. I’m here happy to be able to say that the sound of love always wins as did for me. Snail in the clouds is one of the most important works in my life and I am glad to start from pure love for this album that is my son.”
The album and full-length film will be released on the 5th of June on Monotreme Records.
Michele and Letizia’s previous musical short film, ‘The Great Book of Nature’, is an official selection for the 2026 Venice Shorts Film Festival.
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