We Speak Music
Smag Pa Dig Selv release new album and announce UK tour dates
“Music can be such a tonic, especially when it is this exhilarating. It is impossible not to be physically moved”- Clash Magazine.
“Balances hypnotic, trance-ready propulsion with melodic vulnerability, creating a slowly unfolding story that exists seamlessly between club energy and emotional depth.”- Notion.
“This one is for fans of the explosive, the unexpected, and the unrelenting”- Earmilk
The core ambition behind ‘This Is Why We Lost’, the highly anticipated second Smag På Dig Selv (SPDS) record, was to create music that can exist within a trance or club-oriented setting, while still carrying a strong melodic and narrative arc.
The Danish trio, comprised of two saxophonists and one drummer, have built an international reputation since 2018 as one of Scandinavia’s most intense and unconventional live acts, blending acoustic instrumentation with techno structures, punk energy, and references to 90s dance culture. Their performances have taken them from major festivals in Europe to SummerStage in Central Park, New York, as well as showcase platforms such as SXSW, The Great Escape, and Eurosonic.
Musically, Oliver Lauridsen (tenor sax), Thorbjørn Øllgaard (baritone and bass sax), and Albert Holberg (drums) are older now and are starting to take their music and their lives more seriously. Stripping away some of the self-ironic titles and musical choices that may have frequented their previous work, the album features the band’s moms, a nod to minimalist composer Kali Malone, and a Palestinian folk song. Different voices, different stories, all finding space together.
Still, there’s a red line running through everything. This time the band have tried to have things less in an arm’s length. The curiosity is the same, but it’s more focused now — more confident, more open. It feels like a step forward, without letting go of where they came from.
Featuring recent singles ‘Like A Word I Never Knew’, which Radio X’s John Kennedy has championed, the Dutch Gabber inspired ‘Vik’s Rawcore’, which features acclaimed Vibraphonist Viktoria Søndergaard and the acoustic techno of ‘Let’s Go!’,Smag På Dig Selv continue to challenge the conventions of instrumental music with ‘This Is Why We Lost’ — merging the openness of jazz with the physicality of electronic music and the raw intensity of underground club culture.
Hypnotic and immersive, the album, which was produced by TMI Tammi, is a melting pot of contradiction, which balances propulsion with vulnerability, inviting listeners into a slowly unfolding, melodic story. ‘This Is Why We Lost’ also takes aim at the recent rise in popularity of right-wing politicians both in the west, the east and in the global south.
“There are many reasons for this, but we think this is the time to consider how it could have happened and what the left wing has done or not done to make this happen”, the band said. “As much as the left wing is good at criticizing the right wing, we should also look inwards and think what we could have done to prevent this”, they further explain.
Clash Magazine said, “Music can be such a tonic, especially when it is this exhilarating. It is impossible not to be physically moved”, in a glowing 9/10 review of the album, whilst Notion Magazine said- “Balances hypnotic, trance-ready propulsion with melodic vulnerability, creating a slowly unfolding story that exists seamlessly between club energy and emotional depth.”
The album release will be supported by an extensive international tour throughout 2026, including dates across Europe and the UK. The live dates currently scheduled are as follows, with more to be announced shortly:
February:
21/2: Nordklang Festival, CH
April:
15/4 Pustervik, Göteborg, SE
16/4 Blaa, Oslo, NO
17/4 Debaser, Stockholm, SE
18/4 Plan B, Malmø, SE
22/4 Lark, Berlin, DE
25/4 Atelier Café, Cluj, RO
26/4 Control Club, Bucharest, RO
29/4 A38, Budapest, HU
May:
6/5 Gazarte Ground Stage, Athens, GR
7/5 Soul Skg, Thessaloniki, GR
16/5 Rough Trade, London, UK
20/5 Hug and Pint, Glasgow, UK
21/5 Voodoo Daddy’s, Norwich, UK
22/5 Shindig, Charlton Park, UK
23/5 Bearded Theory, UK
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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