Wetwire - Equilibrium (Self Release)

The Slow Music Movement
Sep 16
1 min read

The cover for Wetwire's Equilibrium single, showing splash of water forming a loop against a grey background, with a shimmering effect. The word "wetwire" is visible at the bottom left.

Wetwire has been transmitting a steady stream of nice vibin' downtempo ambient music for the last five years from her Oregon coastal haven. Pleasingly she eschews cut and paste, sample pack music by numbers production, preferring a more organic methodology that utilises her more fluid, time honed flute and guitar ability; melting down the traditional, often processed instruments into a vat of analogue machinery, then shaping the machine sounds with a musician's sensibility into more tactile, flowing electronica. She is water, and you should be too my friend.

Oh yeah, she is also boycotting Spotify because of found Daniel Ek's investments into a military AI defence company, so extra kudos for her moral compass pointing true north too.

The electronic music producer Wetwire with wet hair up to her shoulders in the ocean, wrapped in a blue cord, showing only her eyes. Cloudy sky background. Calm and surreal mood.

Equilibrium continues her artisinal analogue approach - no AI, no samples, no arpeggiators, no software instruments - a hand built labor of love. Sounds are sculpted then rolled out like long pile carpet throughout to cushion and comfort. Otherworldly sounds drift unhurriedly through the soundscape, the percussion is gently propulsive - designed more to stir thought processes than move the hips. Ambient pads ebb and flow like ocean waters on a windless day. The restrained, low gravity guitar glides forwards and backwards, dissolving seamlessly into the electronic layers, accentuating the calm - there will be no rock heroics here.

It's a fine slice of chilled ambient electronica suitably for all sorts of horizontal scenarios, just don't drive or operate any heavy machinery whilst listening.