An unborn baby records debut album using biosonic MIDI technology

Many of the artists we cherish today began their journey in music at an early age. Many DJs began to have success in the booths as teenagers, and with the modernization and digitalization of music, the prodigies are revealing themselves earlier and earlier. The artist we present today recorded her debut album still in her mother’s womb, officially becoming the first unborn producer in the industry. ‘Sounds Of The Unborn’ is the name of the first album recorded by an unborn baby and will be released on April 2, via Sacred Bones. This is the debut album of Luca Yupanqui and is gathering a lot of curiosity from all music fans. This gifted child is the daughter of musicians Elizabeth Hart from the experimental psych-rock band Psychic Ills and Iván Dias Mathé, who has worked with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and others. The couple recently formed the band Tierra Del Fuego and now also their baby daughter is releasing a record on her own. Luca Yupanqui’s masterpiece was recording during a five-hour-long joint meditation session, using biosonic MIDI technology, a modern and very interesting technique. How does it work? This technology translates the baby’s in-utero movements into sound. For the recording process, the device was hooked to Elizabeth Hart’s stomach, transcribing the vibrations into Mathé’s synthesizers. The couple then edited and mixed the resulting sounds of the sessions to bring the album to life. In this process, they have tried to be as non-intrusive as possible and let baby’s creativity dominate. According to a statement, they wanted to allow:

‘Luca’s message to exist in its raw form (…) It is human nature to wonder what life is like inside another human being’s consciousness. How does it feel? What does it sound like? All these questions became stronger and more important to Elizabeth and Iván while they were waiting for Luca to come into the world (…) At a certain point the questions turned into, What would she say if she could speak? How would she react to the outer world? And ultimately, What kind of music would she play if she was able to? This album is an attempt to answer those questions.’

‘Sounds Of The Unborn’ is now available to pre-order on Sacred Bones and the label is also selling the MIDI Biodata Sonification System, for all those interested in producing music made by their unborn babies.

Apparently, Luca appreciates the work she did before she was born and, as reported by The Guardian:

‘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.’

The first track of the album can now be heard and comes with a video by Luca’s parents, as explained by father Mathé:

‘We did some Super 8 footage during the recording sessions and later we teamed up with artist Victoria Keddie because we love her approach and aesthetic. She processed the film with analog gear and created a visual trip that summarises what we felt while creating this album’

Take a listen to ‘V4.3 pt. 2’, the lead single from ‘Sounds of the Unborn’: 

Image Credit: Nevit Dilmen via Wikimedia Commons | License: Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)