Laptop – Nick Tann's Fresh Music Fix

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I’m Nick Tann, musician and songwriter, sharing the best new music you haven’t heard yet.

Laptop, BJD, Around About Dusk, Shallowdrown

I mention my band’s gig on the 1st November at The Spice of Life, deep in the heart of Soho. Details here: https://nicktann.co.uk/2025/09/08/the-spice-of-life-saturday-1-november-2025/

A bit of a rushed one this week as I recorded this on the Sunday before the Monday when each episode goes live and I felt the pressure!

And off we go with the marvellous Laptop and I Don’t Know. A wonderful trundle down the road of a song from the New York father and son duo with a distinct Beck type vibe. Lovely bit of bio here:

https://linktr.ee/laptoptheband

Upcoming album On This Planet (spring 2026).

Written years ago by Jesse Hartman and his then four-year-old son Charlie (no co-frontman) after Charlie gleefully sabotaged his first standardized test, the song channels the spirit of rebellion, absurdity, and questioning authority.

It’s a back-to-school anthem with a deadpan bite, equal parts childlike defiance and Orwellian pushback. As the chorus shrugs: “I don’t know, I’m just a kid — thinking about silly stuff.” You can even hear the actual real Charlie as a 4-year-old during the intro and outro, as he and dad wrote this crazy song.

The track’s recording is as universal as its theme. Originally tracked in Valencia, Spain on one of Laptop’s chaotic family trips, it later picked up overdubs in Nevis in the Caribbean before being finalized in the band’s hometown of New York City. Along the way, it pulled in a cinematic cast: Nevis vocalist Anna Hadeed, whose playful lines spar with Jesse and Charlie; Lulu, Hartman’s daughter, standing in for young Charlie with echoes of the song’s origin; and a raw, soulful harmonica turn from Santo Fazio — an actor and longtime Hartman muse, now lending a theatrical edge to Laptop’s sound.

“This song has always cracked me up. Charlie was four when we came up with it, after he came home from this IQ test. We knew he was a child genius (for real), but he fails this test ‘cause he gleefully answers every question with purposeful wrong answers or just a plain ‘I don’t know.’ The song stuck with us all these years because it felt bigger: a child’s joke that is really a protest anthem. And boy, do we need a protest anthem right now. It’s rebellion by accident, which turns out to be the perfect kind,” says Jesse Hartman.

The video, directed by Jesse, was filmed at Bravo Studios in New York. It reimagines a classroom as a surreal stage: Jesse and Charlie at school desks, Korina Deming as the stern teacher (and also choreographer of the dances), and Stephanie Koffroth as “Lulu,” the child stand-in. Shot against a green screen and punctuated with animated detours (based on Smbat Harutyunyan’s brilliant animation on “Weirder”), toy harmonicas, and absurdist deadpan, it transforms the origin story into a playful, cinematic echo of the song’s fever dream.

Laptop also recently staged an epic return to New York live performance with a 14-piece band at Sony Hall — their first hometown show in two decades. A Stop Making Sense–like spectacle, it underscored the scale and ambition of Laptop’s reboot and set the stage for the release of I Don’t Know.

Second up was the wonderful BJD and Cold Bias. All I can tell you is that his first name is Barry and he puts me in mind of Audioslave and Bob Mould’s Sugar album. I know nothing else so if you find anything please post it here.

By the way, this is Gretchen, the sweet guitar I bought from the lovely Matthew in Bristol yesterday. I hope to be featuring his band in the very near future.

Also from Bristol is the wonderful Around About Dusk and The Swarm. Surely channelling FOTP (friend of the podcast) Anja McCloskey with a hypnotic gypsy jazz vibe. Socials and stuff can be found on their Facebook page. No website for them that I could find.

And finally the wonderful Shallowdrown and I Bet You Hate Me. A tactile guitar sound that puts me in mind of Paramore Playing God (no YOU look it up!). I bloody loved this song!

Socials abound here and check out their launch in Leicester on the 22 of November:

I mention my band’s gig on the 1st November at The Spice of Life, deep in the heart of Soho. Details here: https://nicktann.co.uk/2025/09/08/the-spice-of-life-saturday-1-november-2025/

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

You can listen to every episode of Nick Tann’s Fresh Music Fix right here on nicktannsfreshmusicfix.com or on your favourite podcast platform including Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube or if you prefer RSS.

While you’re here, hit subscribe and get a heads up email every Monday when a new episode drops.

I’m Nick Tann – musician, songwriter, and your guide to the best new music you haven’t heard yet.

I start off with the fantastic Laptop and Additional Animals that I admit I did take a bit of a liberty with but I think I may have got away with it. I believe this might have been called eclectic anywhere else but not here and not today. I bloody loved it.

It says in their blurb:

Laptop is the cult electro-pop project of quintessential New York filmmaker and musician Jesse Hartman, and now his 19-year-old son Charlie Hartman (Jesse’s clone. Same wiring. Way upgraded hardware), arguably the first father/son duo in alt-rock history. Known for blending sharp wit, heartbreak, and a deadpan delivery with a totally unique insincere sincerity, Jesse was once a Voidoid with Richard Hell and half of the duo Sammy (Fire Records/Geffen Records), before releasing three critically acclaimed Laptop albums on Island Records/Universal.

Following TikTok hit Weirder, their new single Additional Animals is a darkly funny and disturbingly catchy electro-pop track that imagines a planet running out of meat — and the social unraveling that might follow. With shimmering synths, horns, guitars, and a chorus that’s part plea, part punchline, the track taps into something both absurd and alarmingly real.

The song builds on Laptop’s legacy of blending deadpan lyricism with stylish, off-kilter production. Jesse and Charlie trade vocals like two generations trapped at the same dinner party, equally complicit and confused about the future. The result is funny, existential, and hard to forget.

A critical favourite in the early 2000s for his sardonic take on synth-pop, Jesse Hartman’s return comes with a full new band, a new album, and a live show in London this October — Laptop’s first UK appearance in over 20 years.

I can’t find anything about the gig in London. Why don’t you check out their Linktree and see if you can see anything.

Next was my band name winners this week Escape Goats and Rompecabezas. Yeah try and say that out loud, I dare you!

From their blurb:

Charles Bukowski said that isolation is the gift, but as a German he should have known that it’s actually poison. Latest release from Escape Goats comes in the form of Rompecabezas. A three-minute blast, capturing the feeling of being pulled in conflicting directions, playing on double meanings and pseudowords, paired with angular guitars and powerful drums. It was recorded at Venice of the North Studio in Glasgow by bass player Shep, and mastered by Robin Sutherland Mastering in Finland. The single artwork was created by Dundonian fine artist Tom Carlile.

Three-piece alternative band Escape Goats formed in Glasgow (just north of London…) at the beginning of 2024. Members include bass player Andrew Shepherd, guitarist and singer John McLinden (formerly MEMES) and drummer and singer Adam Parker (formerly Make Sparks). The band have recently been featured on BBC Introducing, Fresh on the Net, and Spotlighted by the Unsigned Guide. Having just opened for Glasgow legends Sluts of Trust on their return to the stage in July, we are excited to get our self-produced/funded debut album finished (due for release late 2025).

Here’s their Linktree.

Good Time Locomotive are back with their stonking new single Daylight.

From their press release:

Good Time Locomotive are back with throwback disco rock single Daylight. Hot off the heels of their self-titled EP, released earlier this year, they show no signs of slowing down with their nostalgic disco/rock single. The band re-enter the limelight with new music on the horizon, working with Grammy-award winning mix engineer/producer Adrian Bushby (Muse, Foo Fighters, U2).

Blending full-on rock funk and self-searching emotive lyricism with their signature feel-good grooves, Daylight is a bombastic, floor-filling anthem. Synthesising nostalgic 80s synth disco vibes, before left turns into full-on rocking out and a guitar solo that’s enough to make Eddie Van Halen rise from the dead for a listen.

Speaking about the new single, frontman Hugo Leite says, “People talk a lot about the dangers of drugs, but what about the evil twin of love: Lust? Lust has to be the king of the deadly sins right? That is until you have a moment of clarity and pull back from the brink of being a full-on bunny boiler. This song is all about never going full crazy on that lust stuff!”

Good Time Locomotive are an alternative pop rock band hailing from London, UK. Since officially debuting in 2023, they have enthused their funky pop songwriting style with a feel-good flourish and positive messaging to build an exciting sound.

Follow them here:
Instagram
TikTok
YouTube

Erin Hughes does a fine job of cleansing our souls with her beautiful track I Wish You Love.

She says:

It’s a raw, theatrical breakup track about the emotional whiplash of wishing someone well when you’re still shattered. Think Evanescence-style vocals over a driving rock backdrop, soaked in that post-breakup “grit your teeth and sing anyway” kind of energy.

The track is part of my upcoming EP Penny in the Jukebox — each song tackles a different post-breakup emotion, from rage to resignation. But this one? This is the heartbreak track you put on when you’re still crying but pretending you’re okay.

I say I love it and it reminds me of All About Eve, the band not the film.

Erin just shared her socials with me!

Instagram

YouTube

SoundCloud

I only used chatgpt to tidy up the notes this week and don’t they look loverly. I am running a week long Facebook marketing campaign this week, targeting UK folk who like Spotify podcasts. Lets see how that works out. I ran one last week that was suppose to target Texas but I managed to mess it up and got hundreds of website visits from Mexico. They didn’t listn biut then how many Mexican podcasts have you listened to? Exactly! I quite like these end of show show notes. I’ll let you know how this new Spotify campaign went. Pip pip!