Jesse Hartman's Alt-Pop Project LAPTOP Shares 'Additional Animals'
(SP) Jesse Hartman's cult electro-pop project Laptop has unleashed "Additional Animals" - a darkly funny alt-disco track about extinction, meat, and the absurd human urge for more. It's the second single from "On This Planet", an album co-written and performed with his 19-year-old son Charlie Hartman.
Laptop also performs on September 3rd at NYC's Sony Hall in support of this and earlier single "Weirder" (which went viral with 4M+ views and counting), mixed by Grammy award-winning producer Mario McNulty (David Bowie, Prince, Nine Inch Nails, Laurie Anderson, Julian Lennon). This is the band's first New York show in 20 years, opening for British indie-rock legends Cast, whose members draw from The La's and Shack. "Additional Animals" emerges with a Stop Making Sense-esque 13-piece "band of Animals", uniting members from London with family talent (including acclaimed artists Odetta Hartman and Camellia Hartman) and guests from Lin-Manuel Miranda's Broadway phenomenon "Freestyle Love Supreme" and Denise Gordon of Nevis, whose voice shines across the coming album "On This Planet", spotlighting the project's Caribbean influences.
Now based in New York, Laptop originally emerged in the early 2000s on Island Records with three legendary cult classic albums - "Opening Credits", "The Old Me vs The New You" and "Don't Try This at Home" - earning praise from NME, The Guardian, and others for its stylized blend of synth-pop, irony, and heartbreak. Now they've rebooted the Laptop aesthetic - part indie-pop, part satire, part family therapy session.
"Additional Animals" is as much about appetite as it is about climate anxiety, blending shimmering synths, mandolin and Mediterranean horns. An extension of classic Laptop, this witty indie-pop is a logical evolution for the band, presenting a cross-generational blend of dry wit, anxiety and synth-driven swagger.
"This song is about the human appetite - for meat, for more, for everything - and how that hunger's eating us alive. It's a song about extinction that you can dance to. The lyrics are a little more connected to the moment than usual for me - our failing planet, our endless consumption - but it's still wrapped in this shimmering, international pop packaging," says Jesse Hartman.
"We tracked the song in hip Valencia, added harmonies and Caribbean instruments in Nevis, and finished it in our hood in New York. It's a global pop fever dream about survival, meat, and the slightly hilarious fact that humans always want just a little more."
The video, directed and shot by filmmaker Jesse, was filmed during a surreal family summer in Valencia and features Jesse, Charlie and Jesse's daughter Lulu, along with rooftop horn solos, fishing boats, flamenco parades, aquariums, and sun-drenched chaos - part European art film, part alternate-universe vacation video. Jesse shares, "It stars me, my kids, our percussionist Mike (who used to play with Brian Eno), and our Nevis family singer Denise. It's chaotic and colorful and oddly hopeful - like maybe we're not the last animals standing."
Before Laptop, Jesse Hartman got his start as a teenage Voidoid with Richard Hell before he co-founded the indie rock band Sammy (with Luke Wood, later President of Beats by Dre), releasing albums on Fire Records and Geffen Records. Known for his dry humor and cinematic aesthetic, Hartman was once described by The Guardian as the master of "insincere sincerity." Now joined by his son Charlie, a multi-instrumentalist and co-writer, he brings that same emotional contrast into a new era - with Laptop's blend of deadpan pop and wide-eyed dread more relevant than ever.
With a London show coming in October and a full album on the way in the Spring of 2026, Laptop's return is both a throwback and a reinvention - legacy pop for a collapsing planet.
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