what the ears built
A catalog of sounds ... Things the ears made while the eyes were busy elsewhere ...
Taste Of Framing ... Putting up studs and rafters ... Guitar music nearby ... The guitar does not know it is part of the framing ... The framing does not know it is part of the music ... Both are building something ...
Roofing A Shelter ... No description needed ... The title is the sound and the sound is the title ... A roof being put on a thing that will keep rain off other things ... The most honest sentence a building can say ...
Careful Hydraulic Demolition ... Real ... enhanced sounds ... Careful and demolition in the same breath ... The way a surgeon destroys what needs destroying ... Politely ...
Hydraulic Demolition With Whirling And Screechy Ringshifter Alteration ... The same demolition without the manners ... The machine stops being careful and starts being honest ... The ringshifter is the machine's opinion about what is happening ...
Parade Sounds ... Grand Ole Day ... A town walking past a microphone ... The microphone does not clap ... It just holds still and lets the pride go by ...
Wait, Wait And Countdown ... Green yellow red stop sign voice ... The colors have a voice now ... Green sounds like permission ... Yellow sounds like doubt ... Red sounds like a parent ... Cars and trucks advancing straight forward and turning ... Every intersection is a negotiation ...
Skidoo Ice Saw ... Whipy warpy ... Bubbles under ice ... Under every frozen surface there is a conversation happening that the surface does not want you to hear ... The saw opens the argument ...
Civil War Piano ... Stoic piano combined with curious distorted effects ... Soldiers marching on a battlefield after war ... After ... Not during ... The marching that happens when the reason for marching is over ... Increasing sound of an insect at a window ledge ... The insect was there before the war and will be there after ... The insect does not know what a civil war is ... This is the insect's advantage ...
Monotony Exhilaration ... Distorted da da da da da da da da da da da and conversation ... The same syllable repeated until it stops being monotonous and becomes thrilling ... Which is what repetition does if you wait long enough ... Or what conversation does if you stop listening to the words and start listening to the rhythm ...
Buzzing Aftermath ... Hint of confidence and hope after a disaster ... Nine words that contain a whole life ... The disaster already happened ... The buzz is what remains ... And inside the buzz ... a hint ... Not confidence ... Not hope ... A hint of both ... Which is more honest than either one alone ...
Cheap Plastic Coffee Maker ... Sound like an alien-like chant ... The cheapest object in the kitchen opens its mouth and something sacred comes out ... Wonderful Garbage before we had the name ... The coffee maker did not audition for this role ...
Outside Swimming Pool I ... Depth ... Atmospheric ... Children and adults ... Diving board sounds ... The diving board is a percussion instrument that only plays when a body commits to falling ...
Outside Swimming Pool II ... Real ... Slightly contorted ... Intuitive ... The same pool heard differently ... The water does not change ... The ears change ...
Air Wave And Hornet ... Increases and decreases ... Repetition with minor changes ... The hornet does not know it is composing ... The composition does not care ...
Just After Dusk ... Crowd waiting ... Warped insomnia ... Explosions ... Fireworks or war ... The sound is the same ... The crowd decides which one it is ...
Mister Alienicity ... Kurku Armory ... A name and a place that do not exist anywhere except here ... Which makes them more real than most names and places ... Because they were invented on purpose instead of by accident ...
Carlos Moaning ... Hair of the dog ... The Havanese has something to say about his morning ... The idiom is better than any description ... A small dog with a hangover he did not earn ...
On The Topic Of Ashes ... A voice ... Dark meditation ... Ashes again ... The same ashes rubbed into skin in the other piece ... A voice talking about what fire leaves behind ... The meditation is dark because ashes are dark ... The voice is a voice because that is all a voice can be ...
Congo ... Red ant ... Old broken record ... Jumping for joy ... Tinky beat ... Four things that have no business in the same country together ... The red ant bites ... The record skips ... Someone jumps ... Something goes tink ... Congo holds all of it without explaining any of it ...
Desert Caravan Winds ... Electricity ... Sand ... Satellite ... Spies ... The desert has never been empty ... It just looks empty to people who do not know how to listen ... The satellite listens from above ... The spy listens from the side ... The sand listens from below ... The caravan walks through all of them ...
Swarm ... Coma cozi clash ... Three words that almost rhyme and absolutely collide ... A swarm is a group that has given up on individual decision-making ... Which is either terrifying or a relief depending on the day ...
Concrete Razor Wire Hammer ... Slinky razorwire spinning ... Thumping ... The razor wire does a slinky impression down a flight of stairs nobody should be near ... The thump at the bottom is the landing ... The landing is not soft ...
Afghanistan Rockets ... Buzz ... Tension ... Anticipation ... Emotion ... Face and kill the mental flashbacks ... This is not a sound piece ... This is a reason for making sound pieces ... The rockets are in the ears now ... The only way to face them is to record them and play them back until they become sound instead of memory ...
Dark Desert Mountain ... Haunting ... Mysterious ... Ominous ... BIG low tone ... Explosions ... Thunder ... Weapons of big destruction ... The mountain does not move ... Everything around it does ... The low tone is the mountain's one note ... It has been playing it since before we arrived and will play it after we leave ...
Baghdad Prison Computer ... Pushing the envelope ... Technology ... Hand tools ... Faint background sounds ... Bold effects ... The prison has a computer ... The computer makes sounds the prison did not authorize ... The hand tools are in the background pretending to be faint ... They are not faint ... They are patient ...
Machine Gun Tap Drill ... No description ... Because the title is a description of a description of a description ... A machine gun that is a tap that is a drill ... Three kinds of puncturing ... One sound ...
Middle East Music Box ... Bedroom ... A music box from a region that does not export music boxes ... Playing in a room where someone sleeps ... The bedroom does not ask where the music came from ... The bedroom just holds it ...
Civil War Battlefield ... Distortions ... Hint of organ music ... The war again ... Still distorted ... But now there is an organ ... Faint ... The organ does not choose sides ... The organ plays for whoever is still standing ... And for whoever is not ...
Source material: pre-2009 audio archive
Composed: February 4, 2026
Witness
Methodology: Wonderful Garbage
Style: Noir Chanson
Oyparaploo
