Wind+Wire by dead lizard grin

With Wind+Wire, I’ve created an evocative soundscape, an extended invocation that immerses listeners in the vast, barren expanses of the deep American interior world. This single, sprawling piece, cut into 4 iterations plus a repeat of the first iteration, draws inspiration from the minimalist techniques of La Monte Young, specifically his exploration of the "dream chord," a harmonic construction that seems to suspend time itself. I’ve attempted to channel Young's vision and take it to a place that is my own—a landscape which is austere, yet resonant, a space devoid of any superfluous details, pared down to its most essential elements.

Through an array of droning, resonant tones that rise and fall through unhurried statements of balance and discord, Wind+Wire seeks to mirror the murmuring of wind gliding across a desolate plain. Imagine, a bleak Idahoan landscape, emptied of features, where only a solitary row of telephone poles interrupts the horizon. These structures, though rooted in the physical world become vessels for the unspoken, carrying the faintest whisper of secret voices—voices that, in this setting, appear to transcend the corporeal.

In this place, the wires are not merely part of the environment; they act as an organic symphony’s primary instruments, vibrating softly under the pressures of passing winds. The hum that emanates from them is both haunting and serene, an ethereal drone that seems to carry with it distended fragments of words, memories, and emotions that were once tethered to this world but are now scattered across the sky. It is as if the landscape itself is speaking, sharing an unending monologue of isolation, history, and the transient nature of existence.

I approached this composition with reverential simplicity. Forsaking traditional melody and rhythm, I instead allowed the tones to drift, suspended in the air, each note contributing to an atmosphere of immense solitude and quiet grandeur. Sound becomes landscape, and landscape becomes sound, drifting forever on the wind.

On the day I recorded this work it was very windy outside my apartment. I let the wind itself be my conductor informing when and how much to play and when to rest, each gusty breath over the trees and through the curtains guiding me. In a very real way, this is music that is a direct reactive interpretation of that windy afternoon composed by the wind itself and transcribed by me.

"Wind+Wire" is a piece to be experienced, one that asks the you to surrender to its slow-moving currents, to lose oneself in its hypnotic repetition. Through this work, I’ve tried to offer a meditation on emptiness and austerity, a vision of beauty that can only be found in the starkest, most unembellished corners of the world and dreams. A journey into the heart of desolation, but one that, paradoxically, finds resonance and community in the very act of listening.

Tracklist

1.	WIRE+WIND 1	17:32

2.	WIRE+WIND 2	17:31

3.	WIRE+WIND 3	17:32

4.	WIRE+WIND 4	36:17

Credits

released December 26, 2024

I've divided the work into three roughly equal segments and a fourth which concludes with a full restatement of the opening iteration (and is therefore twice as long as the preceding segments). The segments have been cut for seamless playback with each section flowing into the next.

Composition | Programming | Synthesizer | Mix | Mastering | Design :: Terry Skaggs

Prepared at Fort Awesome, Rock Island, IL, 29 October 2024

License

CC BY 3.0. See the Creative Commons website for details.