This Producer’s Joyful Bird Beats Are Wowing TikTok
So Wylie learned last year that owl calls are "kind of fire." Now she is expanding her catchy avian collection.
In November 2020, during a contested election and deadly pandemic, a tiny Saw-whet Owl was rescued from the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. Being very small (and politically unaffiliated), the owl spawned a minor media sensation. Among those entranced was New York-based music producer .
At the time, Wylie didnt think much about birds in her day-to-day life, but shed always had a soft spot for owls. She Googled the bird and listened to its rhythmic, musical call. I was like, this is kind of fire! she says. I immediately decided I was going to make a beat with it. I made it that afternoon.
She composed a minute-long beat and , thinking of it as a fun one-off project. But the online response was so enthusiastic that Wylie has kept at it. Now, her featuring avian stars such as the , and have garnered an enthusiastic and growing fan base of birders.
Wylie works at Spotifys Gimlet Media as a sound engineer for podcasts such as Dissect and Crime Show, and as a producer for artists like Camille Trust. But shes also an active composer influenced by producers and artists who mix genres freely, including Timbaland, OutKast, and The Gorillaz. When you get down to it, she says, bird calls are like any other sample: The first thing Ill think of is like: What tempo does this suggest? Ill see if any specific chords or key comes to mind, and Ill start building [a beat] based on that.
Wylie had stumbled into the art of making music from recorded birdsong. Its an expansive genre: In 1960, CBS Musical Director Jim Fassett cut together ornithological field recordings to release the experimental and eerie . Wylies contemporaries include: British musician who has also explored blending recorded bird calls into instrumental compositions in , through sly and soothing tracks that use the voices of threatened British birds to follow the passage of time; acoustic ecologist, who releases under the name DJ Ecotone" and whose work is , with beatboxing that weaves around the birdsong; and Indian music teacher A. J. Mithra, who composes drawing on the fauna of the subcontinent.
Wylies bird beats tend to be smooth, distilled, and catchysupporting the birds vocals without distorting them. But the videos are also compelling in their tangible joy and playfulness. with Wylie on her couch, playing a bird call. Her face wrinkles in surprise or delight at the sound; shots follow of her composing at her keyboard, and of waveforms of the bird call on audio programs, the call repeating rhythmically over the action. Finally, the beat drops, with clips of the bird intercut with Wylie bopping along to her latest creation. She deliberately structures the videos to evoke the feeling of creative discovery: Part of the fun is seeing how Wylie reacts to the challenge of whatever bird gets thrown at her.
Many of the birds Wylie has sampled so far have been owls, including , , and , whose otherworldly hiss proved tricky. Shes also been fielding suggestions from listeners. The Eastern Whip-poor-will hive is very strong, Wylie says, laughing. Also the Canyon Wrena lot of people have been very excited about that one. There are so many birds that this could technically keep going forever, so Im just choosing whichever comes next. (Edit note: Wylie released just the other day. A review from 勛圖窪蹋's #birds Slack channel: "This might be my favorite beat yet.")
Wylie has been stunned by the reaction to the videos on TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram Live. The birding community was so much more powerful than I had originally realized, Wylie says. And while shes been wary about taking up space in an online community shes still new to, shes found the feedback touching. Its just brought me so much joy on such an otherwise very dark and tough year, and its just like something Ill never forget.
Shes also become more interested in going birding herself, once its safer to do so with others. Im going to have to creep back into social life, obviously, she says. But I know where to go and who to call if I want to go see some birds now.
Wylie is toying with plans to extend her minute-long video bird beats into an album, but that would be a long-term project; theres also the matter of legally clearing the bird samples she uses, many of which come from institutions like the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. But if she does end up selling her work, any proceeds will be donated back into birding organizations, she says.
This is not something I ever expected to happen, Wylie says. And so all of the positivity thats been given to me through this, I want to bring that positivity back.
Update: Watch a bonus track with 勛圖窪蹋's own Dominic Arenas rapping to So Wylie's beat.