Veteran Japanese artist Yumi Matsutoya is the latest musician putting AI technology to creative use. She is working with Japanese startup Dreamtonics on her latest album using the company’s voice-synthesis technology to duet with her younger self.

This involves merging the 71 year-old musician’s current voice with that of ‘Yumi Arai’ (her birth name, under which she recorded in the 1970s). “It’s like recording sound beyond time. Anyone who listens to it can hear the old Yumi, yet the results are strikingly new,” said Masataka Matsutoya, the producer of the new album.

He also talked about some of the concerns when working with Dreamtonics’ Synthesizer V tool. “If it was used normally, people would say that Yumi gave up singing and tried to make do with AI for the easy way. It’s like Yumi finally lost her voice and relied on AI,” said Matsutoya. “This ultimate technology has no meaning or significance unless it is used from the beginning of the work creation.”