Jensen Sportag

I may be a little late to the Jensen Sportag (facebook/twitter) party, but I would be remiss if I didn’t write them up here on the Walrus as 2012 is going to be a very, very good year for them as they bring their smooth shimmering electro-pop to the world.

With a name apparently taken from a Danish tennis player, this Austin, Texas duo are following up their delightful 2010 debut EP Pure Wet, with an album on consistently impressive Cascine and everything I’ve heard of it so far is breathtaking. They manage to take the soft jazz-influenced smoothness that you’d have found in a bar circa-1985 and make it run rivers through your mind, wash over your soul with a kaleidoscope of colours. This is love.

Today we’ve got the boys doing a remix of Madi Diaz giving anyone an excuse to glamour slide across that dancefloor…

Madi Diaz – Trust Fall (Down We Go Remix by Jensen Sportag) by Jensen Sportag

Jensen Sportag – Gentle Man by CASCINE
Jensen Sportag – Jackie by Jensen Sportag

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What exactly is ‘pop’ music comprised of nowadays? Anything that resonates with the public consciousness, it seems. The charts are dominated by dance music and R&B, but I think there could be room for bands who are ‘pop’ at their core, yet try to mask it with quirks and unusual production. Just ask Django Django. When last I’d heard from them, they were about to release a double A-side single of WOR and Skies Over Cairo. This was early 2010. They hadn’t been on my radar that much since then, but recent single Waveforms indicated the wheels were once again beginning to turn in Django Django-land. All three of the aforementioned songs will feature on their forthcoming, long-awaited, self-titled debut, out January 30th, but the record is being trailed by Default, and it’s arguably the most immediate song the quartet have released so far, featuring an unshakeable hook and breezy guitar line and immediately memorable lyrics like, ‘You thought you’d set the bar, I’d never tried to work it out / We just lit the fire and now you want to put it out’. Their music may portray them as oddballs, but a song as good as this cannot be messed with – they clearly know what they’re doing. FAO fans of Hot Chip: here’s your new favourite band. Everyone else would do well to sit up and pay attention, too, because this lot are going places.

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When FOE’s debut album finally surfaced, it was always going to be something dark and twisted, because that’s the kind of territory in which she operates best. Hannah Clark is coming into her own when it comes to writing gothic pop songs; her album, Bad Dream Hotline, is out January 16th, and is fantastic. The lead single is Cold Hard Rock, an infectious song that finds her in fine form, both vocally and lyrically – ‘Tonight, I’ll try to change the rules of time’ – and one that gives the lie to the common conception that an album’s singles are its weakest songs. It’s tucked away as the penultimate track on Bad Dream Hotline. Her songwriting skills have come on in leaps and bounds since April’s Hot New Trash EP, that much is clear. It might be the powerful drums, menacing synth hook or colossal chorus that does it, but one way or another, this is guaranteed to get stuck in your head. Cold Hard Rock is a brilliant single; more than that, it is a brilliant song. Two words: prepare yourselves.

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