Who hums a song with almost no words? Meet Mike Sain't Louis, the Madrid indie outsider behind ‘Dreams Drift Afar’

Madrid, 25 October 2026 – Most artists introduce themselves with their loudest song. Mike Sain't Louis, the Madrid-based indie alternative artist who calls himself ‘the first AI singer-songwriter’, has a catalogue full of loud, cheeky, uncensored songs about ex-boyfriends, nosy neighbours and queer life in Spain. Yet one of the most revealing tracks in it barely says anything at all. ‘Dreams Drift Afar’ is a night song built almost entirely from murmurs – long lines of ‘mmmmm’ and ‘nananana’ – broken only by a handful of short images: whispers softly calling, night shadows falling, stars that blink and sigh, a moonlit sky, and, at the end of each verse, dreams drifting away.

It is a strange choice of front door for a writer whose whole project is built on words. That is precisely why it is worth opening.

A writer who chose to step back

Mike Sain't Louis writes every lyric in his catalogue. He is the lyricist, composer, music producer and artistic director of PLANETA GAYFOLK, and the CEO of his own independent label, which simply carries his name: MIKE SAIN'T LOUIS. There is no record company, no manager and no intermediary between his notebook and the listener. The music and the vocal performances are generated with artificial intelligence, which he treats as a production and arranging tool – an instrument, not an author. The words, the concept and the artistic direction are his.

That arrangement usually puts the lyric at the centre. In songs such as ‘Tan Cateto’, the track that went viral on TikTok in 2024 and introduced many listeners to his work, the joke lives in the words. In ‘Dreams Drift Afar’ he does the opposite and gets out of the way. The few English phrases he allows himself are simple and deliberately unspectacular:

‘Nananaaaa, dreams drift afar.’

‘Some nights you don't need anybody explaining anything to you,’ he says. ‘You need a sound that sits next to you and doesn't ask questions. I spend most of my life writing sentences. This one was me admitting that sometimes a hum says it better.’

The quiet side of a noisy planet

To understand why the song matters, it helps to know the planet it belongs to. PLANETA GAYFOLK is a catalogue of 273 singles and more than 280 music videos, released over roughly two years of steady, unglamorous work. At its heart is the GAYFOLK trilogy, three albums conceived as a single journey: ‘Descubierto un nuevo planeta llamado GAYFOLK’ (A New Planet Called GAYFOLK Has Been Discovered), ‘Ojalá se pudiera viajar a GAYFOLK’ (If Only We Could Travel to GAYFOLK) and ‘El día de la liberación’ (Liberation Day). Together they trace a trip to an imaginary world where every person can live exactly as they are.

Most of that world is bright and brazen. The style runs from electropop and alternative pop to ballads and even copla, the dramatic Spanish song form usually associated with an older generation. The humour is camp, the language is often explicit, and the targets – liars, hypocrites, ex-partners – rarely escape unscathed. Most songs are in Spanish; others are in English, French or Portuguese.

‘Dreams Drift Afar’ is what happens on that planet after midnight. It is the moment when the party is over, the neighbours have gone quiet and the person who spent the evening making everyone laugh is finally alone with the ceiling.

The man behind the hum

There is a reason a song like this sits in the catalogue of someone who writes so much about damage and recovery. Mike Sain't Louis has spoken openly about the purpose behind PLANETA GAYFOLK: with professional support, he turns years of relationships with narcissistic partners into music, in order to make narcissistic and psychological abuse visible, to show the marks it can leave on mental health, and to make sure that people living through it feel seen and believed.

Not every song on that path needs to name the wound. Some are angry, some are funny, some are furious letters to the past. A few, like this one, are simply places to rest.

‘People think recovery is a speech,’ he says. ‘Most of the time it's just getting through the night. If one of my songs can be the thing you put on when you can't sleep, and you breathe a bit slower because of it, then it's doing the same job as the loud ones. It's just using its indoor voice.’

The photograph that accompanies this release catches something of that mood: Mike Sain't Louis under stone arcades on a rainy evening, the shoulders of his trench coat beaded with water, lanterns burning behind him. It is not a party picture. It is the walk home.

Why it speaks to listeners in the UK

British listeners have a long relationship with music that prefers atmosphere to explanation – the late-night radio show, the headphone album, the song you know by its shape long before you know what it says. ‘Dreams Drift Afar’ belongs in that tradition of listening. Its English is minimal, but it is English, which makes it one of the easiest entry points into a catalogue that is otherwise largely in Spanish.

It also offers a useful corrective to the usual assumptions about AI in music. The common fear is that the technology will flood the world with generic, wordy, interchangeable songs. Here an artist uses it to make something spare and personal, and then signs it as his own work in the most traditional sense: he decided what it should say, and what it should leave unsaid. For anyone in the UK curious about where independent pop is heading, and wary of the hype, that is a more interesting conversation than the headlines tend to allow.

And for those who come for the hush and stay for the noise, the rest of PLANETA GAYFOLK is waiting: the copla turned dancefloor anthem, the electropop break-up song, the ballad that says the thing nobody wanted to say out loud at the dinner table.

An independent catalogue, built the slow way

Two years and 273 singles might sound like a factory. Mike Sain't Louis insists it was the opposite. Each song began with a lyric he wrote, each was shaped and selected by him, and each was released without anyone's permission. The visual side was handled the same way, video by video, more than 280 of them.

‘No label was ever going to sign a queer outsider from Madrid who writes songs about his exes and his neighbour,’ he says. ‘So I became the label. It's not a heroic story. It's just what you do when nobody opens the door: you build a smaller house with your own door.’

That independence is also why the music costs nothing to hear or to keep. There is no shop and nothing for sale. Every song can be streamed and downloaded free of charge from his official website, where each track comes with its full lyrics – so the listener can see exactly how few words ‘Dreams Drift Afar’ needed, and exactly how many some of the others use.

How to approach the song

‘Dreams Drift Afar’ is best heard late, with the lights low, perhaps on the bus home or with the rain against the window. It does not demand attention; it rewards it. Listeners who know Mike Sain't Louis only from the viral clip of ‘Tan Cateto’ may find it surprising. Those discovering him for the first time may find it an unusually gentle introduction to an artist who can be anything but.

Either way, it is a reminder that the most direct writer can also choose silence, and that the choice itself is a form of authorship.

Where to listen and download for free

‘Dreams Drift Afar’ and the full PLANETA GAYFOLK catalogue can be streamed and downloaded for free, with the lyrics of every song, at the official website: https://mikesaintlouis.com. The music is also available on Spotify, Deezer and the major streaming platforms. Follow the project on Instagram at @planetagayfolk.

About Mike Sain't Louis

Mike Sain't Louis is an indie alternative artist working from Madrid, Spain, who presents himself as ‘the first AI singer-songwriter’. He writes all of his own lyrics and directs every stage of his work as composer, producer and artistic director, with artificial intelligence generating the music and vocals as his chosen instrument. As founder and CEO of the independent label MIKE SAIN'T LOUIS, he releases everything himself, without a record company or intermediaries. His project PLANETA GAYFOLK comprises 273 singles, more than 280 music videos and the GAYFOLK trilogy – a body of queer alternative pop that is funny, camp, uncensored and sometimes very quiet, written in Spanish, English, French and Portuguese, and offered free to every listener.

Press contact

Mike Sain't Louis – MIKE SAIN'T LOUIS label Email: info@mikesaintlouis.com Website: https://mikesaintlouis.com Instagram: @planetagayfolk