I Dream of Wires

The modular synthesizer had all but disappeared from the market in the eighties and then came back years later. Robert Fantinatto's documentary tells how that revival happened by talking to a wide circle, from the people who invented the machines to musicians patching cables today in search of a sound. It is about what is inside the boxes and just as much about the relationship people have with them. What is really being told is less a technology story than a story about obsession. Building a sound from scratch instead of taking a ready-made one, chasing something without knowing exactly where it will land, spending hours on a single tone: the film treats all of that not as an eccentricity but as work worth taking seriously. Trent Reznor, Gary Numan and Cevin Key are among those who talk. The subject is narrow but the film is satisfying for anyone curious about it.