Whether it’s using machine learning to extend the permutations of bluegrass tunes, composing speculative multimedia pieces about electrical folklores, or testing the material limits of acoustic instruments, writes Daryl Worthington in The Wire 500, Weston Olencki’s music reflects a fascination with how musical traditions evolve through and with the cultures around them. "I'm interested in exploring the grit and grain of things,” Olencki tells Daryl. “Then exploding it out and seeing what it can do in a different context.”

When The Wire spoke to him, Olencki, who was born and raised in South Carolina but has lived in Berlin since 2022, was in the midst of rehearsals for with sharp bitter lines, a new project with performance artist and vocalist Dylan Kerr which interprets sean-nós songs, mapping the tradition’s migration from Ireland to North America and arriving at how it might exist in the present. Olencki’s mountain dulcimer and Kerr’s voice are entwined and electrified through a talkbox, and digital string synthesis weaves hypothetical instruments into the old songs. “We’re taking these forms, taking these instruments, turning them inside out and seeing what we can find,” says Olencki.

Of this special Wire mix, Olencki writes: “Despite The Wire article’s focus on my solo work and Broadsides, I find that I most often make music with other people. In this mix I wanted to feature, in their own voices, the work of my frequent collaborators. It’s stitched from bits of tracks, records, live performances, and albums-to-be, a few of which I played small roles in or got to see take shape along the way. I owe a lot to these folks, and to the many others that couldn’t fit into this long hour of music. I’m consistently inspired by and grateful for their ideas and imagination, as fellow travellers following the sound. It truly does take a village.”