When a golden bamboo lemur announces itself at dawn, its call brings to mind someone throwing up after a bad shrimp salad. Which makes creating beautiful music with these primate sounds a unique challenge.

But Ben Mirin is up to the task. With help from primatologist Patricia Wright, the musician is putting together his own brand of beatbox music using vocalizations from many of the world's 103 lemur species.

Mirin, a long-time birder, self-taught musician, and science journalist, introduced himself to Wright in 2014 at the Wildlife Conservation Film Festival.

"When he told me he'd been using bird song in his music I thought, what a shame," said Wright, of Stony Brook University in New York. "Lemurs make much