Heart Mechanical
The new EP featuring "We're Here to Recruit Your Kids"
Available March 26, 2012, at iTunes, Amazon, CDBaby, and more. See lyrics and details
For every EP sold, I'm personally donating $1 to the Trevor Project, which provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ youth. Learn more about the Trevor Project
New Website + Song Preview
In anticipation of the release of my new album, “Heart Mechanical,” I’ve updated the look of my website to simplify things a bit and hopefully make it look good too!
Also, you can stream a preview of the song “We’re Here to Recruit Your Kids,” which I’ll be shooting a video for next month (fingers crossed)! Here’s the preview, with the full song to be available soon:
Let me know what you think, and as always, share with your friends online if you like it!
Donating to the Trevor Project
Part of the message of my song “We’re Here to Recruit Your Kids” is about how destructive anti-LGBT sentiment can be, particularly when aimed at young people who are already facing the challenges of finding their own identity. It made sense to me to give back, so I’m personally donating $1 to the Trevor Project for every purchase of my new EP “Heart Mechanical.”
For those who aren’t familiar, The Trevor Project is the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth. Their vision is for “a future where the possibilities, opportunities, and dreams are the same for all youth, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.” I encourage you to also donate! You can even do a simple $5 donation by texting TREVOR to 85944. Visit the Trevor Project website
(Please note — I have no official affiliation with The Trevor Project.)
Photos from my Middle East Cambridge Show
I had an amazing time at the Middle East Upstairs in Cambridge, MA, last night! It was so great to get back on stage and the audience reaction was amazing, I felt so positive about it all and can’t wait to get more shows lined up. I’ve received a few pics from the show I thought I’d share from a few different sources (let me know if you have any as well!):
Also kinda cool — I’m now a legitimate tag on the Weekly Dig Boston website. They don’t review my performance in particular but they do feature one of my songs!
Life is a Disco (studio version)
I’ve been working with my mix engineer behind the scenes to polish up my songs for my “Heart Mechanical” EP (out March 26) and I’m ready to start sharing the results! The first song on the album is “Life is a Disco” — you may have heard the demo version before but I hope you’ll agree it sounds even better as the full studio version. There are still a few more weeks before my EP is available, but in the meantime I’m offering this song to stream online in full:
What do you think? Tell me your thoughts! And please share on Twitter, Facebook, etc. if you like!
LYRICS:
“Heart Mechanical” Album Cover and Track List
I am extremely excited to announce the details of my forthcoming EP, “Heart Mechanical,” featuring 7 songs (some of which I have shared in demo form). They have all been given a professional production & mixing job by my collaborator Yasuhiko Fukuoka and I can’t wait to share them! Album artwork and track list below:
1. Life is a Disco
2. We’re Here to Recruit Your Kids
3. You Don’t Own Me
4. Heart Mechanical
5. Inside
6. This Love is Not Enough
7. Dreams
The (tentative) release date is March 26, 2012. Look out for more information, including song previews and more photos, coming soon!
Tickets available for Middle East Upstairs (Cambridge, MA) – Jan 17
If you’ve been following me on Twitter or Facebook you’ve already heard my announcement that I’ll be performing my first live show since 2008 at the Middle East Upstairs in Cambridge, MA on Tuesday, January 17, 2012! I’m very excited about the show, where I’ll be sharing the bill with Mic Raygun, Glowkids & Fuse, and Young London. I hope to see you there! The details in easy-to-read form:
Michael Hensley with Young London, Glowkids & Fuse, and Mic Raygun
Middle East Upstairs
472 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
8PM 18+ $9
Buy Tickets
I will also be announcing details about my new EP, including album cover and track list, within the next couple weeks, so stay tuned!
Updates on the music front
Things have gotten a little quiet around here lately — but not behind the scenes! I just got back from a trip to New York City to work with my producer/engineer virtuoso, Yasuhiko Fukuoka, to turn my songs from demos into finished pieces. The five songs I’ve shared so far, plus one new one called “This Love Is Not Enough,” will be packaged together into an EP, which I will release probably in January. Mixing is still underway but so far things sound GREAT and I am very excited! Some of the songs may sound pretty similar to what you’ve already heard, but others will be getting more significant re-workings, and all of them will sound much crisper, with better vocals, bigger beats, and clearer sound overall.
My hope is to follow the Robyn plan and release one or two more EPs in 2012 to follow up what I’ve done so far. I’m also working on amping up my promotion efforts and starting to perform live again. Things. Are. Happening!
New Website
Welcome to my new website! A lot has changed. I have been pretty quiet on the music front since 2008, when I released the music video and remix EP for “This Machine.” I took a bit of a break from recording and promoting music but have been back at it the past few months and am excited to have new songs to share! My first two new songs are “Inside” and “You Don’t Own Me,” with a third song “Dreams” coming within a week or two after I polish up the rough demo. As part of this renewed focus on music, I also have a new approach to sharing it:
- For the time being, I’m going to just make all my new songs available free to download and share. It’s much more important to me to get my music heard than to try to make money.
- While I worked with a mix engineer for my previous releases, this time around I’ve sharpened up my production/mixing skills a bit and am just going to share demos — so these songs are not quite perfected yet, but they’re close enough to share.
- I’m also going to include posts about other music I love — I want people to be able to find not just my music but exciting new music from other artists as well. This can be found under the “Faves” link in the site navigation.
- I’m also more active on social media, particularly Twitter (follow @ElectroMichael).
So enjoy! And please, take a listen and share your thoughts about my new songs, even if you don’t love them — I really value ALL feedback, whether it’s praise or constructive criticism. Thank you!
