Laptop – the electro-indie project of New York musician and filmmaker Jesse Hartman – have covered Madonna's Music (yes, really). It's out on 16 October, ahead of a 5 track EP, Nothing to Declare, on 23 October on Hurricane Cove Records.
The story behind it is better than most press releases manage. Back in the late 90s Laptop toured with Stuart Price's Les Rhythmes Digitales, and Price remixed Laptop's Nothing to Declare, which Island put out on 12-inch in 1999. Then the Universal/PolyGram merger swallowed Island, Hartman got moved to MCA, moved to LA – and MCA dropped him.
Wall of Sound were interested in signing him, and he went to see Les Rhythmes Digitales at the Viper Room. Someone gave him ecstasy, he left before they'd even played and drove his battered Honda Civic back to Echo Park in a bit of a state. The deal never happened. In his words: "Stuart went on to produce Madonna. I went on to drive a Honda Civic back to Echo Park on ecstasy after leaving his Viper Room show before he even played. We took slightly different paths."
He didn't pick one of the Madonna songs Price actually produced though – Music was produced by Mirwais. Hartman says it came out in summer 2000, "at almost the exact moment I was being shown the door by the music business", and "I'm not sure whether I'm covering Madonna or haunting my own past."
There's a really cinematic feel to his version – each section seems to open the door onto something a bit bigger than the last, and by the final minute or so it feels less like a track and more like a complete little world of its own.
The EP also reunites him with producer Mark Saunders (The Cure, Depeche Mode, Tricky, Erasure), who worked on the Island-era recordings. Tracklist:
- Nothing To Declare (remastered)
- Nothing To Declare (Les Rhythmes Digitales remix) – never on streaming before
- Music
- Your Body – a song about that night at the Viper Room
- Your Body (Mark Saunders Breakdown At The Discotheque remix)
Before Laptop, Hartman was in Sammy (on Geffen, alongside Nirvana, Weezer and Beck), and he once played guitar for Richard Hell in the Voidoids on a tour of Japan.
He's playing Servant Jazz Quarters in London on 27 October, with support from One Fifteen, the new project from ex-Fat White Family member Joe Pancucci.
More at http://www.laptoptheband.com and http://laptoptheband.bandcamp.com