A Los Angeles singer is fulfilling her dream of releasing her first album, but it’s different from what you might expect—and not just because of the music style. Along with guitars, harps and Portuguese musicians, she’s also bringing in a unique band member: a horse.
Mikayla Khramov was volunteering at a horse rescue when she met an untrained, rescue horse named Yupia. The horse was inexperienced and frustrated, but when she decided to play music to him, something changed in Yupia.
Now, Yupia appears on Khramov’s debut album, where the horse literally makes music by strumming guitars with his nose and plucking strings with his teeth.
Khramov grew up loving horses, and in 2023, she decided
to get back into riding. While living in Los Angeles as a singer-songwriter, she began volunteering at a horse rescue in Moorpark, California. The rescue offered free lessons in exchange for her time.
That’s where she met Yupia.
How a horse learned to play music
Yupia is a 7-year-old American Bashkir bred in Kentucky. When Khramov first pet Yupia, he had trust issues. Khramov said he was never trained, had never been ridden and was biting people out of frustration.
After nine months of getting to know him, Khramov decided one day to bring her instruments to the barn. Slowly, Yupia approached and began participating on his own.
“I didn't give him treats or anything. It was kind of a miracle how it happened. So when I discovered he was almost like communicating or understanding me—the music—I just started doing that regularly,” said Khramov.
Khramov recalled the first time she recorded Yupia playing a guitar, in which he rubbed his nose on the strings for over a minute.
“I think he started realizing like, ‘Oh, this is like our little communication game.’ Like, I can come in with a guitar and then we sit there together and we do it. So I started doing different instruments... I play the harp as well. So I'll bring the harp and he'll start playing it.”
Khramov said music has played a major role in her life. Her father was a musician from Russia who started out as a street performer and played in a band in the '90s. She grew up surrounded by music, and when he died when she was 18, she continued playing in his honor.
To this day, Khramov is still a musician. She’s in several bands and plays the harp at restaurants and hotels.
She always wanted to release an album of her own, but said she’d waited too long to release her own music. So, two years later, when she was able to adopt Yupia, the duo didn’t stop there. Khramov decided to release an album with her horse as a featured artist.
“[Yupia] has inspired me to love music again and not treat it like a job or just a way to make money or anything like that. I go and I write music with him, and being at the barn, and it's quiet and a little dirty, and the light is nice—it's a very inspiring place to write—and then he comes over and is participating with me, and it's fun, and I'm like, 'This is what music should be about, and I don't want to do anything without my horse now.' He makes it more fun,” Khramov reflected.
Releasing an album with a horse musician
For her album-building process, Khramov started by taking samples of music from her horse. She used sounds of Yupia playing the guitar and harp, as well as sounds of him running and whinnying. Then, she needed music to go along with him.
Khramov decided to record the album with Portuguese musicians, since the country has such a huge horse culture. She recorded songs with musicians she never met, using traditional folk instruments while incorporating some experimental sounds.
Over two days in Europe, she pulled together a full band.
While it's hard to place this album into one, fitting genre, Khramov described it as a little bit of dark Americana folk, but Portuguese as well. It blends Americana folk and experimental electronic folk with Spanish guitar riffs and American songwriting.
In short, it's horse-themed, but not in a cheesy way. More like a Brian Eno inspired, spiritual way.
Khramov said she put the sounds of Yupia playing the guitar through different pedals, like reverb, distortion and octaves. While the album will definitely be inspired by horses, it's more subtle. Yupia plays whatever instrument Khramov brings, whether it’s a guitar, accordion or a harp. However, Khramov is still a bit apprehensive bringing in her cello since every instrument Yupia plays leaves markings and gets damaged more quickly.
“People online will say, ‘Well, you must be so rich to just let your instruments go to waste like that,’ and I am not rich, but also I don't feel like I'm wasting anything because the experience is making music with a horse,” Khramov said. “It's not, ‘Oh, I have a fancy instrument and I can't let anybody touch it.’ Like, what's the point of music if you're not going to share it? You know, so I'm not mad about the damage on my instruments.”
Khramov is still working on the album and is planning to head back to Portugal in September to finish the mix. She said she's trying to get it out as soon as possible, but the album is self funded, so it's expensive to produce. Even a day of studio time in LA costs about $600, not including paying the musicians for her album.
Once it's done, Khramov is hoping to send her music off to record labels.
“It's important for me to try to get the music heard by people, and if I self-release, I'll be limited to my friends and my family because I'm not like famous yet, but if I wait and try to distribute, I'll be at a loss for money. But I'll still have the chance for people to hear it, and that's more important to me,” said Khramov.
Khramov plans to finish mixing her music in September and then begin distribution.
While she doesn't have an exact timeline on releasing her album, she is planning on releasing an EP, a few songs from her album, this summer. Until then, people can listen to her music on her Instagram, where she is posting videos of her and Yupia recording music.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: A horse learned how to play instruments. Now, his album's dropping
