Live at Yonder Festival, Mary Valley, 29 November 2019
Singer/guitarist Joe White first began making music after returning from a year spent living in Uganda with his parents on a Christian mission. He met bass player Bodi Lowrie and guitarist/vocalist Nathan Kendall while in high school on the Sunshine Coast and together they played in various projects as teenagers. Moving to Brisbane to study music at the Queensland University of Technology, White met guitarist Jordan Aston and drummer Phillip Fabros. Together, the five formed The Jensens in 2013. Their name was allegedly the only one of pages and pages of ideas that all five members could agree on, taken from a brand of speaker seen at a local music shop. Soon realising they were getting more out of music by playing it than studying it, they dropped out of uni to put more time into the band.
The Jensens’ early style could be characterised as boisterous indie rock, and they became a live mainstay around Brisbane and eventually Australia, playing festivals such as Valley Fiesta, The Blurst of Times, Deadlam, Jungle Love, The Big Pineapple Festival, Grampians Music Festival and Splendour in the Grass. The Jensens released the EPs “Everybody Talks” in 2016 and “Sexless” in 2017 before their music took on a larger scope with the albums “Hyacinth Haze” in 2019 and “Hammer & Blush” in 2021. The band’s influences expanded and Joe White’s lyrics began incorporating themes of conflict between his religious upbringing and his adult identity as a queer man.
Luminescence are a Brisbane string group formed in 2018, covering classical, contemporary and experimental genres. They are made up of Toukie Wood and Liz Young on violins, and Emma Hales and Anitah Kumar on cellos, with Kumar also serving as the group’s creative director. They have played several arts events, including GOMA Up Late, Anywhere Festival, Jungle Love and the Brisbane Street Art Festival.
For the recording of The Jensens’ second album, “Hammer & Blush”, Luminescence were brought onboard to write and record string parts, and the sessions went so well they were invited to join The Jensens onstage for their appearance at Yonder Festival in 2019, where Luminescence were also performing a collaboration with artist/designer Chris Mangos. Accompanied by saxophonist Joel Aspinall, The Jensens and Luminescence delivered a unique performance for the Yonder crowd that Live Delay was very fortunate to capture for posterity.
Recorded by Taine Josephson
Mixed by Bodi Lowrie
Show production, engineering and host: Scott Mercer
Originally aired via Zed Digital, 7-8pm, Sunday 4 July, 2021