Woman from cover of Black Sabbath's debut album releases rock opera
Based on Alice in Wonderland
Last updated 23 hours ago
The enigmatic witch-like woman from the seminal cover of Black Sabbath’s 1970 debut album ‘Black Sabbath’ has released a rock opera.
The seminal and highly eerie cover for Black Sabbath’s eponymous debut was shot at the 15th Century Mapledurham Watermill, located on the banks of the River Thames in Oxfordshire.
Central to the foreboding ‘Black Sabbath’ sleeve is the ghostly, mysterious woman in black, who is seemingly referenced in the opening lines of the title track and opening song: “What is this that stands before me? / Figure in black which points at me.”
50 years after the album’s release, Rolling Stone exclusively revealed in February 2020 that the model was Louisa Livingstone, who was 18 years old at the time photographer Keith Macmillan captured the iconic image.
A musician and composer with a background in TV, films and theatre, Livingstone has been recording music as Indreba – a portmanteau of Incredible Dream Band – for several years.
In February 2026 she released the single ‘Witch Woman’ and the B-side ‘The Woman by the Mill’, which both reference Livingstone’s famous appearance on the Sabbath sleeve.
"Witch Woman came out of nowhere as a sudden idea of what I could do," she tells Rolling Stone in a newly published interview. "Black Sabbath fans loved the songs, which was gratifying as it was aimed at them and definitely deliberately in the metal genre for that reason.”
Now, Livingstone has released the five-song EP called ‘Alice’, which is based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland books.
Available to listen to and purchase on Bandcamp here, the EP is described as ‘a psychedelic rock opera featuring Alice who returns to explore the crazy 2026 world of the internet and AI.’
Livingstone tells Rolling Stone: "Tracks one to five tell the story in sequence with an abundance of captivating musical changes. The lyrics are a key element in this rollercoaster ride of a music trip."
She adds: "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."