THE MISSING GIRL
Directed by A.D. Calvo
End Credits "Finest Line" by Mike Sempert
THE MISSING GIRL
Directed by A.D. Calvo
End Credits "Finest Line" by Mike Sempert
THE MISSING GIRL
Directed by A.D. Calvo
End Credits "Finest Line" by Mike Sempert
THE MISSING GIRL
Directed by A.D. Calvo
End Credits "Finest Line" by Mike Sempert
Michael Sempert is a composer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, entrepreneur and educator. Equal parts heart and craft; lifeblood and elegant design, Sempert's music has been performed at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC, San Francisco Jazz Center, the Rathaus in Vienna as well as countless venues and clubs across the USA. He has released over a dozen albums of original music, scored a range of feature films and licensed his songs for hit TV shows.
"Strange Kind of Mirror is an all-timer for me... one of those tunes I've listened to on repeat for weeks on end... It's a perfect song."
--- Justin Vernon (Bon Iver)
Sempert's film scores include the award-winning indie films including Summoning the Spirit, A Room Full of Nothing and Homestate. These film scores range in style from majestic orchestral to cosmic American music to synth-based ambient score. He has also scored TV movies Bixler High Private Eye (Nickelodeon) and The Kid Who Only Hit Homers.
Sempert's original songs have been licensed for television by ABC's Grey's Anatomy, Netflix' Bloodline, Disney +'s Just Beyond and many more.
In 2015, Sempert and composer Peter Bayne co-founded West Channel, a commercial music house whose clients include Meta, Corteva, Google and Visa as well as the non-profits Change Heroes, Honor Flight and the UN Foundation.
Sempert graduated from the double-degree program at Tufts University and New England Conservatory of Music ('04) in his home town of Boston, MA with a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Composition. While living in the Bay Area of California, Sempert led the band Birds & Batteries, writing and producing five critically acclaimed albums and performing hundreds of shows around the US. Pitchfork described their 2009 EP Up To No Good as "a high-concept mashup of two of the slickest eras of pop production."
Mike's first solo album, Mid Dream (2014) included the song "Finest Line," which was licensed for TV (Syfy) as well as viral videos accruing over 22 million views on YouTube. In 2015, Sempert released an album of instrumental electronic music under the moniker of Volcanic Legacy, with companion video-remixes of BBC's Planet Earth. His second solo album, Tend the Flame was released in 2017 and features the single “Distance”, which has been licensed by multiple TV shows and accrued over half a million plays on Spotify. Sempert’s third solo album, Reunion of Sparks was released on Infinity Maps in 2019. His 80's inspired synth soundtrack album for Jon Garcia's pandemic love-story Love In Dangerous Times was released November 2020.
Sempert's latest creative venture is the 2nd Volcanic Legacy album, titled Foolish Magic.
Mike teaches Songwriting, Lyric Writing and Music Production at Berklee College of Music in Boston.
"Foolish Magic is like a jukebox trip to a throwback discotheque from another dimension. Mike Sempert ascends above all that arrived before toward the new fashion fusions of tomorrow."
--- Week In Pop
"Sempert composed an effective and heartfelt score for the ambitious and charming Love in Dangerous Times."
--- Broadway World
"an expertly tailored, absurdist fuck-you to the rom-com, and a ringing endorsement for the symbiosis of editor Kyle Blair-Henderson and composer Michael Sempert."
--- Vulture
"An inward survey of those intricate expanses between ourselves and others."
--- Impose
"This is a track I put on repeat and imagine a different story for each play through. It feels like a science fiction story put into music, and I have the pleasure of deciphering it."
--- New Classic LA
"To put it bluntly, I don’t know of a more talented songwriter in the Bay Area"
"Like a high-concept mashup of two of the slickest eras of pop production... ebullient"
— Pitchfork
"Synthesizer crescendos create a lonesome soundscape"
— NPR
"LEGENDARY"
"When Neil Young discovered the synthesizer, he made Trans. San Francisco's Birds & Batteries demonstrate another — dare we say better? — way that combination could have worked."
"So gorgeous I find myself playing it over and over again… Lulls you into magic"
— Futuresounds
"Linear forms with an emotional pop arc."
— Impose
"High fidelity on both an intimate and epic scale."
"An absolute stunner."
"Epic art pop"
"Ripe with the flickering, rare magic"
"Beautiful... eloquent"
"Awesome...and wildly unsettling"
“A little bit country, a little bit rock n’ roll, a little bit electronic and all kinds of intriguing pop.”
— The Onion AV Club
"Brilliant"
— 7x7
"Strange Kind of Mirror is an all-timer for me... one of those tunes I've listened to on repeat for weeks on end... It's a perfect song."
--- Justin Vernon (Bon Iver)