‘Spine-tingling’ lost Marvin Gaye tracks unearthed in Belgium

More than 60 “spine-tingling” lost Marvin Gaye tracks have been uncovered in Belgium.

The previously unheard recordings have been stored on 30 tapes at a Belgian home for 42 years.

Marvin, who died in 1984, had stayed with musician Charles Dumolin in Ostend, Belgium and left behind a collection of 30 tapes, alongside notebooks, letters and costumes.

“We can open a time capsule here and share the music of Marvin with the world,” Charles’s family lawyer and business partner Alex Trappeniers told the BBC. “It’s very clear. He’s very present.”

Alex said he had sifted through the recordings and found at least 66 demos of new material among them.

“A few of them are complete and a few of them are as good as ‘Sexual Healing,’ because it was made in the same time,” he said.

“There was one song that when I listened to it for ten seconds I found the music was in my head all day, the words were in my head all day, like a moment of planetary alignment.”

In Belgium, legal ownership is established after 30 years of possession – meaning all of the items belong to the Dumolin family.

“Marvin gave it to them and said, ‘Do whatever you want with it’ and he never came back. That’s important,” Alex said.

That law does not apply to intellectual property, meaning the Dumolins likely do not have the right to publish Marvins rediscovered material.