The Current (Minnesota Public Radio)

Ed O'Brien on Adding Bird Sounds to His New Solo Album #EdOBrien

Ed O'Brien explains that his new solo album is driven by a visual, cinematic approach to sound, and that he deliberately incorporated natural bird recordings to shape its atmosphere. He describes how the music conjures images in his mind, and how the bird calls became a narrative thread throughout the project. The artist recounts setting up microphones outdoors, capturing raw bird song, then processing it through delays and other effects. During mixing he insisted on raising the birds’ volume, treating them like a party ambience that should sit alongside drums and guitars, believing the avian tones convey emotion as powerfully as any instrument. O'Brien emphasizes that listening to birds each morning during a dark period in 2021 sparked an awakening, noting, “the sound of bird song conveys a feeling and a mood… equal to any notes that are played or sung.” He likens the birds to a subtle yet dominant layer that shapes the listener’s experience. By foregrounding nature’s soundscape, O'Brien blurs the line between environmental audio and traditional composition, signaling a shift toward more immersive, therapeutic production techniques that could inspire other artists to explore non‑musical elements as core expressive tools.