An Unborn Baby Has Recorded A New Album (Sort Of)

Here’s some music trivia: Michael Jackson was just 11 years old when Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back,” on which he sings lead vocals, topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart. That probably makes him the youngest person to have a No. 1 song, but now there’s an even younger new artist making waves: Sacred Bones has announced a new album, Sounds Of The Unborn, from an artist named Luca Yupanqui, who “performed” on the album before they were even born.

It happened like this: The child’s parents, Psychic Ills bassist Elizabeth Hart and Lee “Scratch” Perry collaborator Iván Diaz Mathé, used “biosonic MIDI technology, which translated Luca’s in utero movements into sound.” Sacred Bones describes the recording and production process:

“They designed a ritual, a kind of joint meditation for the three of them, with the MIDI devices hooked to Elizabeth’s stomach, transcribing its vibrations into Iván’s synthesizers. They let the free-form meditations flow without much interference, just falling deeper into trance and feeling the unity. After five hour-long sessions, the shape of an album began to emerge. Elizabeth and Iván then edited and mixed the results of the sessions, respecting the sounds as they were produced, trying to intervene as little as possible, allowing Luca’s message to exist in its raw form.

Elizabeth and Iván mixed the album in 2020. Luca, now an infant, sat in the studio with them while they worked. Her awareness of what was happening was astounding. She would open her eyes wide and stare at her parents, seemingly recognizing her own sounds from the womb, knowing that they were revisiting those rituals that made them come together as one. Those mixing sessions were technically the first time Luca had heard her own music, but her reaction made it clear that that wasn’t really the case — she had already lived it. “

The first taste of the album, “V4.3 pt. 2,” is out now, so listen to that above and check out the Sounds Of The Unborn art and tracklist below.