Butterflies in the stomach are not a metaphor you usually hear next to peak-time dance pop. Saint Micah just made them the whole point. “Papillon,” out now via Casa Doce Music, is the second single of his new era, and it treats that fluttery first-crush feeling like a production brief: bright, a little unstable, and ready to lift off.
The title is French for butterfly, and the artist is not being cute about it. “Papillon is inspired by the feeling of getting butterflies in your stomach when you like someone new,” he says. “I’ve had this experience a few times and I think many other people have, too.” That is the whole thesis. Dance pop, EDM, and indietronica are having a moment where polish and personality are supposed to coexist, and this track sits right in that lane. It is club-ready without pretending the emotion is optional.
What you actually hear is a dance pop gem built around that idea, plus a French-inspired piano bridge Saint Micah says gives him butterflies of his own. That detail matters. He is a virtuoso pianist first, formerly known as Micah McLaurin, and the new name is not a rebrand sticker. It is a darker, more cinematic chapter about transformation, pressure, and reinvention. Polished but unstable. Elegant but intense. The piano is not a cameo; it is the part of the song that still sounds like him when the drop wants to take over.
“Papillon” follows “The Grind,” the high-intensity dance pop single about the gap between who society wants you to be and who you are when nobody is watching. That one already had receipts: an official remix by GRAMMY-winning producer and DJ Dave Audé (Lady Gaga, Madonna, Britney Spears, Beyoncé) that entered Music Week’s Commercial Pop Club Chart, plus a high-concept video from visual artists and fashion photographers Domen and Van De Velde. So this is not a cold start. It is the next page of a hot streak.
The supporting cast around Saint Micah is the kind of list that usually lives in fashion week recaps, not press sheets. Producer duo PhD (Zedd, Kylie Minogue, One Direction). Creative director Nicola Formichetti. Designers and houses including Zaldy, Dolce & Gabbana, Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Ludovic de Saint Sernin, Rahul Mishra, Robert Abi Nader, and Stephane Rolland. The music is doing the talking, but the world-building is not an afterthought. He is treating the pop star as someone who builds rooms, not just playlists.
That fits the current dance-pop and EDM climate pretty well. Listeners still want a hook they can shout, but they also want a little theater and a little honesty. Indietronica keeps sneaking into the same conversation because it lets melody stay strange while the drums stay functional. “Papillon” uses that overlap: new-love rush on the surface, metamorphosis underneath, piano in the middle so the track does not flatten into generic festival fuel.
If you only know him from the classical-to-pop pipeline, this single is the cleanest argument yet that the new identity is not a costume. Formerly Micah McLaurin, now Saint Micah, he is writing from the exact place the name change was meant to protect: no permission required, just the next version of himself.
What do you think of this one? Does the piano bridge hit you the same way, or are you here for the dance-floor lift? Drop it in the comments.
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