ID#: 825

Corroded Wires (2025) ; 5:00

by Neal Farwell

University of Bristol, UK

Wires under tension, holding our structures, routing our circuits, joining us. Processes of corrosion, the dirtying of surfaces, a taste of acid; but also joy in the imperfect. A dramatic arc drives through the transformations, counterpoints and convergence, and their uncoupling. Despite its dark undercurrents, the work uses a playful collision of techniques. There are materials from an additive synthesis system I coded for inner glitching, modulation and algorithmic trajectories, made in Max; ‘analog’ modular synthesis (in VCV Rack 2); recordings of live instruments with found tunings; creative abuse of the commercial Pianoteq 8 instrument; a hybrid overtone / Zarlino temperament, and its dissonant shadows; crunchy distortions; a nod to Steve Reich; and an array of personal, ad hoc and improvisatory tools. The piece was created in Logic Pro, and mixed in Dolby Atmos with physical 7.0.4 monitoring. For the Listening Room, I rendered a no-height 7.0 version in Dolby Audio Renderer; allocated channels directly to the 8-channel octaphonic ring with a notional small rotation (the original centre channel is now on front left); and cross-fed a few elements to the otherwise unused back rear right channel. The online stereo version is made with the default binaural renderer in DAR, but plays fine on loudspeakers as well as headphones. Corroded Wires is the second of an ongoing cycle of short works — others are in progress, or still just ideas — all exploring the sounds and uses of metal. The first, Study in Steel, was premiered in November 2022 and presented at ICMC 2023 in Shenzhen, China.