“In 2020, right as I was getting into field recording, I heard Sun Ching-sung’s album Birds and was astounded by how fascinating it was!” He Wenjin tells Apple Music. Collected by He and his studio partner Zhang Shiye, the field recordings that form the foundation of BIRDLAND are paired with nature-inspired instrumentals. Though featuring primarily the calls of Beijing’s birds, the recordings also include more distant environmental sounds as well as the hubbub of urban life in the capital—snippets of conversation, city-dwellers doing morning exercises in the Temple of Heaven and the iconic melody of “The East Is Red” that plays throughout the day on the Telegraph Building’s electronic chimes. In Spatial Audio, these soundscapes offer an immersive listening experience. “Sound engineer Shen Tian and I spent a lot of time doing ‘sound experiments’ to get the birds to truly ‘fly’,” He says. “Shen had unique insights into questions of timbre and space and how to handle balance, breadth and depth.” The tracks also include voice-overs—field notes, impressions of bird-watching and other details about the recording process—that producer Adam Huang and artistic consultant Chang Jing convinced He to add as aids to the listener. “These may be my individual experiences, but I hope they’ll resonate with people,” he says. “And I hope they’ll be helpful to other people interested in field recording, just like Sun Ching-sung’s album was for me.” Below, Lao He tells Apple Music how the sound of three album tracks came together. “There is a Fusu in the mountains” “This is a love song from the Book of Songs. The continuous motion leaves space for people to imagine lovely emotions felt in the grass beneath the trees. When I chat with musicians Chang Jing and Zhangdi, we often discuss the birds and natural settings of those ancient odes. I asked Sun Ching-sung for field recordings from mountain villages in Taiwan when they were creating this piece. So, the bird and cow sounds at the beginning and end were recorded in Taiwan. And Chang Jing found inspiration from the melody of that cow call. “The earliest version of this track appeared on Chang Jing and Zhangdi’s Sound of Wilderness. At their suggestion, the version you hear now is a new mix, with sounds from the mountains of northern Beijing added to the second half. It fits together especially well—a fusion of soundscape and original music.” “Mountain Village Soundscape” “This is a recording from a mountain village in Taiwan that was specially provided by Sun Ching-Sung. It’s an echo of the previous track, ‘Millennium Bird’s Road’. One heartfelt wish of mine is to see the birds of Sun’s village and hear the island’s bird calls. I’m sure many of you understand what that wish implies. So, to me, this track is a call sent across the Strait. In voice-over, Sun explains what is meant by ‘soundscape’. I hope listeners can get a sense of this wish that Sun and I share.” “Coda: The universe is dark and yellow” “The last song on the album is at once a coda, a summation and a new beginning. Music and sound effects added by producer Adam Huang complement the soundscape to give a strong visual feel. The sounds of all four seasons are on display, putting time and space into flux. Even depth isn’t constant—there are calls of owls and beasts in the distance as well as a subtle rustling of bird wings and footfalls of flying squirrels nearby. These sounds were recorded in the valleys of Beijing’s eastern hilly region! Beauty is never far from us, so long as we open our ears to discover it.”