With the release of 2024’s full-length debut, SDPS, Copenhagen-based acoustic techno/jazz punks Smag På Dig Selv (SPDS) — Oliver Lauridsen (tenor sax), Thorbjørn Øllgaard (baritone sax, bass sax, vocals) and Albert Holberg (drums) — firmly cemented their reputation as one of most boundary pushing groups in the contemporary Danish scene. With a sound that’s an explosive, party starting mixture of acoustic techno, punk energy, jazz and 90s EDM, the Danish trio have begun to make the round of the international festival and touring circuit, playing sets at Roskilde Festival, SXSW, The Great Escape, Eurosonic, Winter Jazzfest NYC and Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage.
SPDS’s highly-anticipated sophomore album This Is Why We Lost is slated for a March 2026 through Stunt Records. The album will feature the previously released, TMI Tammi-produced “Let’s Go!,” “Vik’s Rawcore,” which sees the trio collaborating with vibraphonist Viktoria Søndergaard, and the album’s fourth and final, pre-release single “Like A Word I Never Knew.”
Arguably one of the darker songs on the album, “Like A Word I Never Knew,” is a trance-inducing and forcefully propulsive club banger paired with a modal-era Miles Davis-like introspective lyricism. Recorded during the final phase of album sessions, “Like A Word I Never Knew,” captures a moment of transition. As summer inevitably faded into yet another autumn and the band wrapped up their final shows of the season, they entered the studio with a noticeably calmer, more introspective energy. And the result is a track driven by focus, restraint and deep emotional weight.
For the band, the song reflects the core ambition behind the forthcoming album: to create music that can exist within a trance or club-orientated setting while still carrying a strong melodic and narrative arc.
