V.A. I Dream Of Wires

I Dream of Wires is a new documentary about the rise, fall and rebirth of the machine that shaped electronic music: the modular synthesizer.Exploring the synthesizer's history, the film reveals how innovators like Robert Moog helped build the foundation for the machine. It shows how cheap foreign imports destroyed the synthesizer's reputation. And it tracks the phenomenal resurgence of high end modular synthesizers being used today by a new generation of musicians, many of them at the forefront of EDM - the electronic dance music genre.

Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), Gary Numan, Carl Craig, Morton Subotnick and John Foxx talk about their passion for the modular synthesizer, and how it influences their music. A new generation of dance and electronic artists including Clark, James Holden and Factory Floor reveal why they've embraced the sound and physicality of modular synthesizers.

Innovative companies like Modcan and Doepfer, driven by a desire to revive modular synthesizers, discuss how they planted the seeds that have now grown into a major cottage industry. What started out as a "vintage-revival scene" has grown into an underground phenomenon with modular obsessives craving ever more wild and innovative sounds and interfaces. Today, the modular synthesizer is no longer an esoteric curiosity or even a mere musical instrument; it is an essential tool for radical new sounds and a bona-fide subculture. “I Dream Of Wires shows how, in the same way that the instruments themselves are rewiring both performers' and listeners' expectations about electronic music, the community that has evolved around modular synths is changing the relationships between users, sellers, and makers…" - The Wire magazine (UK) "The documentary is not so much a glory days, over-the-shoulder retelling of the instrument in its heyday but a tracing of its history, rise, fall and current resurgence…. Aesthetically, modular synthesizers seem as endlessly retro as they do futuristic and I Dream Of Wires seems to use this stylistic foundation as a means to explore more deeply the past, present and future of the unique world of the modular synthesizer."

Actors: Trent Reznor, Gary Numan, Carl Craig / Directors: Robert Fantinatto, Jason Amm / Format: Multiple Formats, Closed-captioned, Colour, Full Screen, HiFi Sound, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen / Language: English Subtitles: Spanish