Seattle is a loud city what with its jetliners, sea planes, news helicopters, construction sites and super highways... an almost uninterrupted spewing forth
of noise. I've never lived in such a noise city (and I've lived in my fair share). This constant din makes it difficult to appreciate many subtle yet wonderful
things about day to day life.

A person can live here years and not catch the faint sound of church bells drifting on the air of the late afternoon or enjoy the secret pleasure of eaves-
dropping on a neighbors' intimate murmurings, spilling through a window. Even the emergence of spring all around us seems hushed and drowned at
the moment. Some folks may say it's still too early in the season. Yes, well some people also argue that we should reduce emissions 12.5% by the year
2012 as they crank up the air-conditioning in their Humvee and watch New Orleans get wiped out by Category 5's on the onboard HD flatscreen.
Meanwhile, songbirds outside mobile phone factories in Sweden can learn to sing the Mexican Hat Dance. Marvelous!

Noise pollution, like other pollution, is degrading our lives. Yes, that may seem like a hyperbolic statement to you, but as a musician and engineer,
I'm bothered by the dull roar of our city more than most. Jumbo jets and TV radiation seep into microphone and cable, often making recording sessions
a mind numbing, Sisyphean endeavor throughout this thrumming city. Paradoxically, the band which I performed with for many years was stopped by
the SPD on no less than 32 different occasions for 'disturbing the peace'... for making too much infernal noise on the street. It happened so often that
it became almost disturbing if the police DIDN'T shut us down.

I can remember one day some years ago when our peace, all over the country, was disturbed by 2 airplanes crashing into some towers. It was the
most pleasantly quiet and thoughtful day I will probably ever experience in this city. Things just haven't felt peaceful ever since .

I come from a town in Oklahoma where I lived next to seemingly endless farms and cattle pastures. It was quiet growing up there. I can remember
many fantastic sounds with amazing detail; the tractor beam crescendo of buzzing ciccadas that could almost stop time on a sweltering summer day,
the difference between a linedrive and a popfly when hit with a wooden or a metal bat, quarter horses chasing each other around and then standing
in one place - seemingly lost in thought and, in winter, that singular sound of dry snow crunching under foot.

Sometimes, on an extraordinary day, a hot air balloon might loom overhead, drifting huge and silently, bringing a strange stillness to the air. It would
fly so close to the trees (what few there were) that it was possible to carry on a hurried conversation with the occupants. Then the blast valve would fire
off a loud stream of flame, carrying it up into a breeze and swiftly away. I often wished they would drop me a line.

But by far the best sound I can remember was in the spring, during tornado seasons. A wall cloud would form on the horizon, dark dark darker than any
cloud you've ever seen in your life and it would get really REEEALLLY quiet, no birds or anything. Then the civil defense sirens would sound off to signal
that a tornado had touched down or been sighted locally. The effect was awesome - those huge yellow horns wailing away all over town. It always
sounded like the end of the world was upon the land. But, if you were a brave kid, you would stay outside as long as you could until some mindful
adult started screaming at you to get inside under the stairs. Oh man, those were the fun times!

Now, in this Seattle place with its quaalude-like climate, grey clouds glowing orange at night, and Boeing 757s roaring across the flightpath I live under,
I wish for someone to descend down from the cloudcover of Beacon Hill, shouting through a megaphone, 'Here, climb up the rope! We can take you
somewhere else... to a place where you can listen to the End of the World Horns.'

So, that is essentially what this project and past/future endeavors like it hope to do, in some small way... lift folks out from those blankets of podcasts
and genre splintering playlists that blare through chintzy earphones and fragment each person into his or her own incidental world of sound until
they suffer premature hearing loss.

You may ask, 'Yes, but aren't you doing exactly just that? What with the mp3s and headphones? Plugging peoples' ears up with more noise?'
And we say, 'No! This is INTENTIONAL!' That's the whole point. It's to do with your environment and with you and others having a shared experience.
And sometimes it's even to do with beauty when we're being nice. It's about little stabs at happinesss.

Hot air balloons and End of the World Horns. That's the Audible Semaphore pledge!

 

Please contact: Robb Kunz (inphaseprod at yahoo.com) if you have comments or questions.