Getting to know-know-know them

After conquering much of the globe with a Michael Jackson-esque ditty called "Move Your Feet," and then prompting citizens of its newly formed dayglow dance nation to "Shake Your Coconuts," the jocundly eclectic Danish pop band Junior Senior seemed to vanish from its own party.

"I guess it has been a while," admits Jeppe Laursen (a.k.a. Senior) on the phone from a tour stop in Berlin.

The band released its debut, 2003's "D-D-Don't Stop the Beat," to much acclaim and booty shaking. The album, in which Laursen and Jesper Mortensen (a.k.a. Junior) gleefully declared to the world that "We want to be like Nancy and Lee" (as in Sinatra and Hazlewood), spawned a pair of dance-floor hits. But after a quick tour, Junior Senior were gone, and it was beginning to look unlikely that US audiences would ever hear from the blond duo again.

Junior Senior released a second album, "Hey Hey My My Yo Yo" in Denmark and Japan in 2005. The album was a hit in both countries. But Junior Senior, a duo that mixes up everything from musical styles to sexual orientation, were not interested in rushing the album to other territories.

"We're very protective of our music," Laursen says. "And if your band isn't a priority of the record label, then your album gets lost. We'd rather license our music to someone who really wants to get it out there."

So two years after "Hey Hey" was released overseas, it is finally arriving in the US next week with a bonus EP of seven songs that sound like the work of a 1980s British band that recently discovered funk. The delay was caused by the band itself. Junior Senior, who play the Middle East Downstairs tomorrow night, did the near-unthinkable for an emerging band: It dumped its major label (Atlantic Records) and instead went with the smaller Rykodisc to release its sophomore album.

The two were particularly careful about ensuring that the album reaches US audiences because Laursen says America is close to Junior Senior's collective heart. Their hyper-string of pop-culture references comes from American music, and he says American audiences most understand and appreciate how the band filters US music history through its slightly skewed Nordic perspective -- such as on the decade-skipping and purely infectious "Hip Hop a Lula."

That love of American pop music comes through in "Hey Hey" thanks to the band's unusual recording technique. Instead of cloistering themselves away in a European studio, Laursen and Mortensen recorded the album over eight days in studios across America with a list of drool-inducing guest stars: In Atlanta they recorded the song "Take My Time" with Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson of the B-52's. In Muscle Shoals, Ala., they worked with legendary organist Spooner Oldham. In New York they enlisted Le Tigre. In Chicago, they sought out the semi-obscure Motown girl group the Velvelettes for backup vocals.

"For some people it can be confusing because there are so many different vocalists on the new record," says Laursen. "But there's so much R&B and hip-hop music out there that's featuring this and featuring that. We wanted to get away from all of that and make something where we were just bringing people together and having a good time."

The result of the cross-country recording is a goulash of '80s hip-hop, electro-pop, and shameless disco shaken in a rhinestone-studded tumbler, poured into Smurf-shaped highball glasses, and garnished with tiny paper parasols. The album has the distinct feel of Laursen and Mortensen throwing a party on the Lido deck of "The Love Boat" with guest stars Salt-N-Pepa and Charo, and go-go dancing by cruise director Julie McCoy.

"People seem to perk up and enjoy themselves whenever I play Junior Senior," says JD Samson of Le Tigre, who duets with the band on the album's first single, "Can I Get Get Get." "It's so amazing having music that's positive and just about having a good time. When I talk about Junior Senior, I'm always saying that they're the most real dance band that could ever exist. Everything they do is incredibly catchy."

The music is entirely about having a good time, meeting girls, meeting boys, and obsessing over music in a geeky-cool fashion. There are few bands that could pull off writing a song from the perspective of handclaps, called, simply, "We Are the Handclaps." "Can I Get Get Get" is a rare breed of boy-girl summer dance anthem where the boy (Laursen) is singing to other boys, and the girl (Samson) is trying to lure other ladies -- all while the 60-something-year-old members of the Velvelettes provide harmonies.

Laursen says that recording "Hey Hey" was a bit like living a dream for the band, which formed in Copenhagen in the mid-1990s. As teenagers, the two scoured record shops and collected vinyl from bands like the B-52's. Ten years later, the B-52's contacted Junior Senior and told the pair that "D-D-Don't Stop" inspired them to return to the studio to record their first album in 15 years. (That album is still in the works.)

"They've obviously been a big inspiration for us," says Laursen. "Not just musically, but also their aesthetic and how they approach music as a lifestyle and attitude. For two guys from Denmark to have people you respect calling you and telling you these things -- it's amazing."

Their new album is decidedly funkier and more dance-oriented than their debut, which, in sweetly self-effacing fashion, Laursen attributes to a simple shift from rapid tempo to a slower, sexier one.

"It's never a conscious decision of 'Now we want to go in this direction.' What motivates us to make music is the desire to keep surprising ourselves and to keep changing," he says. "And, more importantly, the desire to keep having a good time."

Christopher Muther can be reached at muther@globe.com.