[Cover photo credit to Caroline Malouf]

The Spiritual Machines, led by Producer/musician Evan Frankfort, have released new single “You Can’t Hear Me” from their upcoming LP Lockhearted (out 8/16), a concept album inspired by Ray Kurzweil and his prediction that computers would develop souls.

As the album opener, the new song finds Frankfort “pleading for connection in an increasingly divided world.” The track arrives with an animated official video.

Of the track, Frankfort shares:

How can we be communicating so clearly and somehow not connecting? We have two ears and one mouth…we should listen twice as much as we speak.  We must offer the desire to hear if we want to be heard. 

From the album, the band has shared first single “The Mirror and the Dancer”, and second single “I’ll Die Laughing”.

Inspired by the pioneer/futurist Kurzweil and his 1999 book The Age Of Spiritual Machines, Lockhearted takes Kurzweil’s predictions and applies them to the era of AI. Rather than just being a “bleak statement on the horrors of the present and the anxieties of the future”, the album finds Frankfort “looking inwards and taking stock of what’s important in his life.”

Over the years, Frankfort has worked with Liz Phair, Pete Yorn, Plain White T’s, The Wallflowers, Warren Zevon and many others. For Lockhearted, he wrote, Produced and mixed all of the songs, as well as sang, played guitar, keyboards and bass. 

Future Aaron, a frequent collaborator of Frankfort’s, shared vocal duties and played bass, while Craig Owens, known for composing TV themes, including for Dance Moms and The Wendy Williams Show, was the primary keyboardist.

French drummer Matt LeChavalier (ETHS & Headcharger, My Ruin, Full Blown Rose, Whiskey Falls) rounds out the quartet.