Hank Heaven | Thread | Music Video of the Month (August 2026)

There are songs that announce themselves, and then there are songs like Thread. It doesn’t kick your door down, it just kind of just moves in, quietly, in the middle of the night when no one is looking and by the second listen you realize it’s been living in your head the whole time. That’s the kind of infectious, ear worm of a song offered by Hank Heaven, and it’s exactly why “Thread” is Mad Indie Media’s Music Video of the Month!

If you don’t know Hank Heaven yet, here’s the brief synopsis: the NYC-based singer-songwriter has been carving out a corner of the indie world that’s raw, unguarded, and unmistakably human. Following 2024’s Loaded Dice, which featured a standout collab with Beach Bunny on Beloved, Hank Heaven took a sharp turn away from the processed, club-influenced textures of that EP and toward something stripped down and emotionally authentic. 

That shift lines up with a bigger one too as we eagerly anticipate the August 14th release of Welterweight, Heaven’s upcoming up. Pre-save the release here. 

Heaven, who is trans and nonbinary, has been candid in interviews about how their relationship with masculinity and vulnerability shaped the sound of this new material, and you can hear every bit of that honesty in Thread.

Produced by Phil Weinrobe (Adrianne Lenker, Big Thief) and recorded live without headphones, Thread is a song about the specific, haunting way an ex can embed themselves into your most ordinary routines. Heaven has described writing the song while feeling permanently reminded of someone, whether it was doing laundry, walking the neighborhood, or even just the simple act of trying to get better. That’s the whole idea behind the title. A thread doesn’t announce itself either, it just keeps pulling.

Hank Heaven – Thread – Official Music Video

The video, directed by Weston Borg, matches the song’s mood beat for beat: understated, intimate, and never once overplaying its hand. It’s the kind of visual that trusts the song to do the heavy lifting, which is exactly the kind of restraint we love to see.

Heaven’s backing band on the recording reads like a who’s-who of the current NYC indie-folk scene, with Sean Mullins on drums, Adam Brisbin and Mike Haldeman on guitars, Nuria Graham on bass, and Bobby Hawk on violin rounding out the arrangement. It’s a band that knows how to leave space, which is really what Thread encapsulates, giving grief and memory room to breathe instead of trying to drown them out.

We’re kicking off our August right with Hank Heaven front and center because this is exactly the kind of artist we love: unsigned in spirit even when the momentum is undeniable, honest without performing honesty, and building a body of work that rewards the listeners who stick around. Thread is a small song about a big feeling.

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