wilo wilde

wilo wilde. 

To me, that name simultaneously evokes cunning and transgression. Wily, wild, tricky, daring, clever, free. And honestly, wilo wilde’s electronic music is mysterious enough to make you wonder: who is the girl behind the deep kicks, sugary melodies, and songs of youthful heartbreak? Is she who her name makes her out to be?

In Costa Mesa, California, wilo wilde has a guitar and a ukulele wall-mounted over a midi keyboard in her simply-adorned bedroom studio. Her demeanor is affable, kind, and respectfully reserved – sweet, even. You can tell there’s a lot of pent-up energy behind those eyes, but she’s learned to channel it into enthusiastically active listening.

After spending ten minutes or so talking to her, those cunning and transgressive attributes prompted by her artist name had fled my mind entirely. Then, suddenly, I found myself shocked when this mild-mannered girl revealed she was a raver in college.

“I went to a LOT of raves,” she laughs. “Raves, concerts – being with friends. I just realized this whole other community existed. Every weekend I was like, ‘What's next?!’ I don't know how I came up with that money, because I was so broke, but you know, when you're young and you need to be somewhere, somehow money appears.”

wilo spent a lot of her life feeling aimless. Especially in college, she struggled under the weight of parental expectations, a restless creative brain, and financial strain. “I was pre-med because of my parents, mainly. They’re first-gen immigrants,” she explains. wilo wilde is half Mexican, half Chinese. “I think naturally they just wanted to set me up with what's best for me.” But when she took her first collegiate chemistry class, she immediately knew it wasn’t for her.

She knew she couldn’t handle it because she always struggled in school. Sure, wilo ended up attending and graduating from UCLA, so nobody would ever assume she did. But as a girl with rampant ADHD, she tested poorly and really struggled with her work. It required her whole heart and soul to earn a single B+. Her brain was always on, always active, but never in the way it was supposed to be. She was always doodling in class with dreams of working at Disney or Pixar but with no clue how to get there.

Sadly, she never got there. Instead, she graduated from UCLA with a degree in psychology. “I came out of college, like, very, very, very lost, and I just didn't know what route I wanted to take,” she says with regret and sadness evident in her voice.

The corporate job she found managed to satisfy the urge to creatively express herself through visual arts – but only temporarily. She became a graphic designer with literally no experience. All she had was a childhood love of art and some unrealized dreams.

“I thought, ‘I’m creative. Let me just try.’ So I completely taught myself through YouTube,” she laughs, explaining how she learned the Adobe Creative Cloud in a wily fashion. “There were many, many days where, you know, at work, I had no idea how to do anything.” Pretending to type into a YouTube search bar she says, “HOW TO MASK. HOW TO PAIR FONTS.”

But she figured it out. She has a Chinese phrase tattooed on her arm that means “add gas.” The phrase is a guiding pillar in her life. “It means that hard work is the basis of everything, and that you can do it,” she says. And she did. She succeeded at finding stable employment in a field she was never formally trained in simply by adding gas and believing in herself. Granted, it was twelve dollars an hour in California (brutal!) but she did it. “But even when I was in graphic design I was executing things for other people and still searching for something that would be fulfilling to me creatively. You live one life and I was like: ‘What am I doing?’”

So she became a wild raver searching for purpose.

She’d go out every weekend with her friends and was enthralled by a world she never knew existed. It was there at those parties that she discovered she had a unique ability to see and feel sound as textures. Called textural synesthesia, it’s a phenomenon that causes sensory crossovers. Generally, synesthesia is a condition that activates two or more senses when there's only a reason for one sense to activate.

While wilo wilde personally hates admitting she has synesthesia (because it’s become trendy among musicians and internet dwellers to claim you have it when you really don’t), she’s one of the people who truly have it. They exist, just like people with perfect pitch exist.

When she finally dove into the world of electronic music, suddenly her life made sense. Sure her mom put her in piano at age six and she played through high school, but classical music didn’t stimulate her brain the way electronic music did.

“That's how I stumbled across that Martin Garrix vlog,” she remembers. She watched, amazed, as he built music in FL Studio. Referring to the colored multitracks in his digital audio workstation, she says, “I didn't know what it was, but he was making music. It was all these layers and colors, and I was like, what is he doing? Now it's like, ‘Oh, yeah, duh. Someone has to make the music.’ But before then I never knew there was such a concept as having to produce the music. Somehow, to me, it just magically appeared on the radio.”

But now the curtain was pulled back. The floodgates were opened. wilo wilde had just discovered her thing. She immediately downloaded a free trial of Ableton.

“I was so excited,” she laughs. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, I'm going to make so many musics!’” However, when the program opened, she was immediately overwhelmed. It felt like rocket science. She looked at it for two seconds and shut her laptop and quit.

For a day.

“I started learning. You know, looking on YouTube, ” she says, again miming typing in the search bar. “Then eventually I went to a school in LA called Icon Collective, and that's where I learned everything and started my producer journey.”

Since that time, wilo wilde has been spending her time making the kind of music she sees in vivid color. She’ll start with one prolonged synth note and stretch it out over 4 minutes and just tinker with it as she listens until it looks right to her. Like in visual art, space is important to her. She spends a lot of time setting the space for her sounds, dialing in the reverb until the sound exists in the exact setting she’s feeling.

“That’s where I start. The world-building,” she smiles. You can tell this is her passion. “I want you to dive deep into the world of how I'm feeling. It’s how I feel – how I really, truly feel. Like, when I'm making it, I truly feel it. This is so dramatic, but sometimes I'll make chords and I'll cry.” Her eyes get big and emotive as she uses a finger to trace the path of an imaginary single tear down her face. “I’ll say, ‘Oh my gosh, I love the way this makes me feel.’”

From there, she finds a chord progression that speaks to her and starts to loop it on repeat in that space as she builds out how she’s feeling. “I'm really inspired by textures,” she explains. “I can see the way music looks. I can see how certain sounds are fuzzier or they look a certain way. And so when I put it together, it's like the coolest thing. It’s like seeing all the shapes and textures just fit together just so.”

Listeners have responded enthusiastically to the music she’s produced so cunningly in her bedroom. Making music is a wild experience for her – rebelling against lifelong expectations and leaning into her newly discovered passion. Together with her trusted mixing engineer and friend Nathan Boddy, she’s been able to elevate the sonic integrity of her music to the point that she’s starting to make real waves. For example, her song “i’ll be there” racked up an impressive 3.5 million streams on Spotify.

Now, she’s gearing up for the release of a new EP. Over the last few months she’s been waterfall-releasing singles, one by one, until the final reveal of all seven tracks. “I’m a big feeler. Very sensitive and emotional. I’m also a Pisces, so falling in love and heartbreak are so intense for me,” she explains. “This EP was placed in the order of the stages of a relationship. You fall in love, it doesn’t work out, and then you’re searching.”

Given her ability to feel sound in unique ways, I have a feeling that this film-versus-HD description is more prophetic than allegorical. Some will be able to see, but most will be able to hear for themselves on September 13, 2024 when what is a heart? drops on all streaming platforms.

Fittingly, what is a heart? is the name of her new EP. Written in both LA and London, she aims for it to be the most fully-realized statement of her emotional, sonic personality. The seven tracks weave their way through EDM, UKG, pop, trance, and more.

Fans and new listeners can expect wilo wilde to explore new sounds while keeping everything human, organic, and emotive. wilo wilde just wants people to feel as much as she does. “I want something that’s real. It’s the warm hug – that’s the feeling I want people to feel. I want my music to feel like an old film photo instead of something in HD.”

Given her ability to see sound in living color, I have a feeling that this film-versus-HD description is more prophetic than allegorical. Some will be able to see, but most will be able tohear for themselves on September 13, 2024 when what is a heart? drops on all streaming platforms.

Until then, you can follow wilo wilde on Instagram and stream her brand new single, “over you,” below.