During the last quarter of 2025, alternative band Laptop released a couple of really interesting singles. Taking the energies of OK-Go, a huge influence from new wave and the quirky, melodic charm of Beck, their best work has managed to catch the ear of many a music fan immersed in cult sounds.

They close the year with something a little different. In the name of a genuinely alternative Xmas track, they’ve taken the Tom Waits classic ‘Chrismas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis’ (a stand out cut from Tom’s 1978 album ‘Blue Valentine, also home to the brilliant ‘Red Shoes By The News Stand’) and reimagined it from the ground up.

Gone are the sweeping orchestrations and huge, crooned vocals which lent the original cut a tone that fell somewhere between wintertime heartbreak and inebreated self-pity. Instead, Laptop work an arrangement that’s already been dubbed a “robotic confession”.

The slow melody now comes via a droning synth, occasionally dropping in some weird, bendy notes worthy of electronica’s pioneers of the 70s. That still manages to be a perfect backdrop for a slow, aching vocal, even though everything feels so different to Tom’s original vision. What really makes this work, though, are the fainter string influenced sounds that occasionally peek through the downbeat arrangement, and the brass sounds – again derived from the synth, but taking on a strange, old school sound that, despite taking far more of a back seat, occasionally hint at the stately mood that’s found at the heart of the later Waits classic ‘In The Neighbourhood’.

With this cover, Laptop take the lyrics of Tom Waits and transpose them into a world that feels a little closer to the likes of Wolfgang Press, or even Federale, if only that band were enamoured with electronica. It’s a welcome twist on a very familiar track, certainly, and a great extension of Laptop’s own work, which might help to bring in new fans.

Take a listen below.