By Track Three My Shoes Were Under the Couch: A Listener's Night on Mike Sain't Louis's Planet GAYFOLK

Madrid, 25 October 2026 – I did not plan to dance. I planned to take notes. The brief was simple: spend an evening with the catalogue of Mike Sain't Louis, an indie alternative artist from Madrid who calls himself "the first AI singer-songwriter", and write down what I heard. I had a notebook, a cup of tea and sensible shoes. By the third song the shoes were under the couch.

Some context before the dancing. Mike Sain't Louis writes every lyric in his catalogue and works as composer, music producer, artistic director and CEO of his own independent label, MIKE SAIN'T LOUIS. No record company, no middlemen. The music and the vocal performances are generated with artificial intelligence, used as a production and arranging tool that he directs version by version. Over about two years he has put out 273 singles and more than 280 music videos under the name PLANETA GAYFOLK, and every one of them can be downloaded free, with lyrics, from his website. I mention the free part because it matters for what happened next: there was no paywall between me and the next track, so I just kept pressing play.

Barefoot: the wish to leave

I started with longing. "Ojalá se pudiera viajar a GAYFOLK" ("If only you could travel to GAYFOLK") shares its title with the second album of the trilogy, and the artist's own note describes it as the wish to escape to another planet. A place where you would not have to explain yourself, defend yourself or pretend. Where emotions are art, sadness gets a soundtrack and, in his words, the odd ones out do not have to apologise for being odd.

He calls GAYFOLK his refuge, his poetic revenge and his emotional rescue, and he describes the video as an inner journey: the desire to run from what hurts and find a place where love does not hurt and identity is not up for negotiation.

I listened to it barefoot on the floorboards, which turned out to be the right way. There is a specific feeling of standing in your own lounge room and wishing you were somewhere else entirely, somewhere nobody asks you questions. The song does not answer that feeling. It keeps it company. I swayed rather than danced. My notebook says only: "wants to leave. so do I. fine."

The heels come out

Here is a confession that has nothing to do with Mike Sain't Louis and everything to do with his music: there is a pair of very high heels in my wardrobe that I have worn exactly twice. By the middle of the evening they were on.

I blame the catalogue's sense of spectacle. These are songs about love, heartbreak, ex-boyfriends, nosy neighbours and queer life in Spain, told with humour and camp, and many of them seem built for a dance floor where the only rule is that nobody explains themselves. Heels on, the room felt bigger. That, I suspect, is the whole idea of the planet.

The song with the rude title

Then came "Esta canción es una mierda", which translates, politely, as "This song is crap". It is Mike Sain't Louis's reply to the people who comment without understanding, criticise for the sake of it and confuse honesty with madness and art with a formula. In his own note he says it was born from tiredness but also from laughter: a way of saying, fine, think what you like, I'm still here, writing, creating and provoking.

The line from his note that stayed with me is the simplest: if his authenticity bothers you, the problem is not his song, it is your filter. He refuses, he writes, to apologise for making art out of his emotions.

I danced to this one properly. Heels and all. There is nothing like stamping across a lounge room to a song whose title is an insult its author has taken back. It felt like tearing up a bad review.

"If someone insults the song, I put the insult in the title," Mike Sain't Louis says. "Now it's mine. They can't use it any more."

Why it lands here

Australia has a dance-floor culture that has always made room for people in the wrong shoes, and a sense of humour that prefers the piss-take to the speech. PLANETA GAYFOLK sits comfortably in both. The songs are mostly in Spanish, with others in English, French or Portuguese, and the sound moves from electropop to copla, alternative pop and ballad. Lyrics can be explicit; that is part of the work.

There is weight under the sequins. Mike Sain't Louis has spoken publicly about turning years of relationships with narcissistic partners into music, with professional help, so that people who have survived psychological abuse feel seen and believed. Somewhere between the barefoot song and the heels song, I understood that the escape and the stamping were the same story.

"The dance floor is the first planet I ever found," he says. "GAYFOLK is just a bigger one."

I took the heels off at midnight. The notebook stayed mostly empty. That is the most honest review I can give.

Listen and download

Both songs, along with the complete catalogue, can be streamed and downloaded free, with full lyrics, at https://mikesaintlouis.com. The music is also on Spotify, Deezer and the main platforms. Many listeners found the artist in 2024, when "Tan Cateto" went viral on TikTok. Instagram: @planetagayfolk.

About Mike Sain't Louis

Mike Sain't Louis is a Madrid lyricist and indie alternative artist known by his own description as "the first AI singer-songwriter". He runs his career independently through his label, MIKE SAIN'T LOUIS. His GAYFOLK trilogy, "Descubierto un nuevo planeta llamado GAYFOLK", "Ojalá se pudiera viajar a GAYFOLK" and "El día de la liberación", traces a single journey to a planet where everyone can live as they are.

Media contact

MIKE SAIN'T LOUIS Email: info@mikesaintlouis.com Web: https://mikesaintlouis.com Instagram: @planetagayfolk