Cult NYC project Laptop, led by Jesse Hartman, continues their cinematic synth pop revival with their new single, “Indie Hero,” a wry and wistful love song to the myth of late 20th century cool, but also a hate song about hero worship gone hideously wrong. This track opens a compelling new chapter for Laptop, which is now a multi generational pop experiment with Jesse joined by his son Charlie Hartman as co frontman, mixing equal parts satire and sincerity. The single is the perfect preview of their forthcoming album, ‘On This Planet’, slated for release in Spring 2026 via Hurricane Cove Records.
Jesse Hartman shares the personal details that fuel the track: as a teenage guitarist, he once toured overseas with one of his idols, watching the myth of cool dissolve in real time, a moment that truly captured his youthful ambition colliding with middle aged madness during a fateful night in a Tokyo restaurant. The Hartmans sing: “I’ll dive across a table for you, my indie hero, I’m feeling so unstable for you, my indie hero” — a refrain that is half romantic, half tragic, and entirely reckless. Hartman commented that, “This is a love letter to the ghosts of the ’90s and their obsession with the ghosts of the late ’70s. All the beautiful people who never quite went the distance. Including me. It’s about idol worship, but also about outgrowing it.”
The fantastic video, directed by Jesse Hartman, reimagines that journey as a Japanese comic book fever dream: a young musician chasing his dreams and heroes across neon cities and sake bars, only to discover that the real revelation is not fame, but self discovery. Written years ago by Hartman and longtime musical collaborator Luke Wood (from Hartman’s first band Sammy), and recorded this past year between New York, Nevis, and Valencia, “Indie Hero” layers drums and machines, horns and synths, shimmering guitars, and the Hartmans’ sly vocals into something both nostalgic and immediate.
Laptop originally emerged in the early 2000s with three cult classic albums on Island Records, earning high praise from NME and The Guardian, who famously dubbed Hartman the master of “insincere sincerity.” Since reviving the band, Laptop has released the surreal trilogy ‘Additional Animals’, ‘I Don’t Know’, and “Weirder,” which were mixed by GRAMMY award winning producer Mario McNulty (David Bowie, Prince) and collectively drew millions of views. Laptop has recently staged an epic return to live performance with a 14 piece band at New York’s Sony Hall for their first hometown show in two decades, opening for UK legends Cast, and a headliner show at London’s Waiting Room. These spectacles underscore the scale and ambition of Laptop’s reboot.