Lucy Claire Turns Pregnancy Loss, Infertility and IVF Into a Haunting Passage Through Time on With Child, Without

Composer and sound artist Lucy Claire has transformed years of pregnancy loss, infertility and IVF into an intimate new album, With Child, Without.

Out today, first single Hollow offers a quiet but devastating introduction to the record — a piece shaped by the emptiness that remains after pregnancy loss, when the immediacy of grief fades and absence begins to settle in.

Set for release on 20 November via independent label Bigo & Twigetti, With Child, Without features 11 instrumental compositions written across the years Claire spent navigating loss, uncertainty and fertility treatment. Rather than documenting those experiences literally, the album translates them into sound, tracing the strange passage of time that comes with waiting for something that may never arrive.

Across tracks including Passing, Adrift, Needles, Fragile Hope and Envy, Claire explores the repetition of medication, appointments, scans and waiting rooms, alongside the more difficult emotions that accompany them — numbness, uncertainty, envy and grief.

That sense of repetition is central to Hollow. Claire describes the track as being about the “afterimage” of loss: the shape left behind by something once imagined and briefly held, before disappearing.

There’s a ritualistic quality to the album, too. Months become moons, medical routines become rhythms, and ordinary calendars lose their meaning. The opening track, fifty-two moons, takes its name from the fifty-second moon of Claire’s journey towards motherhood — ultimately marking the arrival of her daughter.

The result is a record concerned as much with time as it is with loss. With Child, Without captures the limbo of infertility, the feeling of watching life continue around you while your own future remains suspended, and the fragile return of hope after years of uncertainty.

Importantly, Claire’s story doesn’t end with loss. Her journey eventually led to motherhood, but With Child, Without refuses to erase everything that came before it. Instead, it holds those experiences alongside the gratitude of where she ultimately arrived.

With its strings, clarinet and piano creating an intimate, cinematic soundscape, the album offers both a deeply personal account and a space for recognition — particularly for anyone who has experienced pregnancy loss or infertility, and for those trying to understand what that experience can feel like from the outside.

Hollow is out now, with With Child, Without arriving on 20 November.