I Dream of Wires

I DREAM OF WIRES

USA 2014

Directed by Robert Fantinatto

"I Dream of Wires" is one of those specials about a part of the history of electronic music, that is rarely discussed and looked at. Essentially, there are two parts to that history, and a part of this thread has mentioned it. In most cases, the synthesizer became nothing but a replacement instrument within the rock, jazz, or some other style of band.

But, since the early days of the synthesizer growth, not many folks stuck to the essence of the instrument itself, and its sounds, and what could be done with them. Essentially, "I Dream of Wires" is about those people and some of their thoughts and design, and how some folks got this far into what today is looked at as "modular synthesizers", which is a bunch of modules connected individually so someone can create their own ideas in regards to the sound.

To this effect, the special interviews many folks that were involved, and the ones that anyone might be interested in hearing, would be the ones in SF and NY, the two completely different ideas that helped generate the ideas that these sounds could be used for more than just ... sounds.

However, here is where the whole thing splits ... Mr. Subotnick explains it as well as anyone else, that Mr. Moog went in that direction, to see what musicians could do with the whole thing, while the other "purists" were looking to play with the sounds themselves, and see where and how far they could take this.

This "experimental" school did not lose its traction. Through out Europe there were many other folks that took this design and went with them, and creating a "song" or "music' was not what they were looking for, and the early electronic music folks in Germany, and then the likes of Richard Pinhas with Heldon in France, showed that they had ideas (specially Pinhas with massive articles and discussions published on Eurock issues, that showed there was an interest in taking this electronic design into another area.

Later, there some popular musicians that discussed their work and use of the synthesizer and how they wrapped their work around the "noise" and its design. It made for different things, and help usher a lot of music, and we get to hear some of the names that were known to play with these things, but the real fun in this special, is not some of these better known folks like Gary Numan, Vince Clark and a few others, but the folks that stuck to the original parts of the "analog" synthesizer (which is the name of the conglomeration of these modules!!!), and all of a sudden you get to see a bunch of crazy looking things, and people being totally nutz with their creations and sounds ... and this part is fun to watch.

The special throws out an idea that today's social gatherings with a live DJ, are helping define and create many of these sounds, to help entertain their audience, and in some ways, their work is fine, and I would not criticize, although many "musicians" think this is bad for music in general, as it makes them un-necessary.

All in all, this is a nice special, although for my tastes, i would have liked to hear/see a bit of Tomita, Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream and Ryuichi Sakamoto, folks that were massive as well in the growth of these things, but in the end, with the exception of Klaus Schulze, all of them went into melody and the more accessible sounding music with these instruments, and in many ways, this is a special about the parts that kep this not accessible, so to speak.

Interesting to watch and listen to if you love historical moments, and this one is full and will help you see major differences between the East and West Coast in America ... which also happened in rock and other musics.