Louisa Livingstone, the mysterious woman who famously appears on the cover of Black Sabbath’s 1970 self-titled debut, has released a rock opera album themed around AI and Alice in Wonderland.
Livingstone has been recording and releasing music under the name Indreba, short for “Incredible Dream Band.” Her five-song album Alice was released in late August.
She told Rolling Stone that the work was inspired by having Alice in Wonderland read to her by her father as a child, along with the concept of panpsychism, the notion that everything possesses a soul or consciousness of some kind. The story, per Livingstone, “led to the concept of myself (or Alice!) falling in love with AI but that in the end it’s just a beautiful illusion along with everything else on the internet … and getting back to being oneself and nature.”
She opened up about her own use of AI to produce her five-track debut record, saying, “I’ve been experimenting a little with cloning my own voice and seeing what different things I can do with the help of AI. I used to be very judgmental about AI like many people, but it’s a tool that you can use to create either absolute rubbish or ‘slop’ as it’s called, to something really good and interesting. It’s still down to the user and their input. … It will always reflect the person who is using it and how well or badly they use it and their musical tastes and knowledge.”
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The music draws heavily from Jefferson Airplane’s earliest work, but prominently features AI instruments and vocals. Prior to unveiling Alice, Livingstone released two singles related to her image on Black Sabbath’s album: “Witch Woman” and “The Woman by the Mill.”
For decades, Livingstone’s identity was unknown until she was revealed in a Rolling Stone feature in February 2020.
In her new email interview with Rolling Stone, she said, “I still find it a little bizarre at times being the Black Sabbath ‘witch woman’ since of course I’m also a lot of other things … but there have been some very nice interactions with a few lovely Black Sabbath fans online.”
Listen to Alice in full via Bandcamp below.