Black Boboi¡¯s latest album, ¡°Sepia,¡± started out as a novel. During the pandemic, the three members sent sci-fi-inspired ideas back and forth, jotting down notes in a Google Doc, an exchange that evolved into a narrative about the distant future.

¡°In 2024, we (began to) share sounds to accompany the story,¡± says Julia Shortreed, who, like everyone else in the electronic group, both sings and plays multiple instruments. ¡°We worked on how to further shape that material into actual songs.¡±

Shortreed and fellow members Utena Kobayashi and Ermhoi (who goes by one name for privacy reasons) initially thought they were making a soundtrack to this novel-in-progress. ¡°But after we let it sit for a bit ¡­ each individual song had its own story, with vocals too,¡± says Kobayashi.