On Sonic Intolerance by Larry Thrasher

"This is not a perfect world.

Since the onslaught of affordable Digital audio I have noticed a certain breed expounding new convictions on sonic acceptibility. Intolerant to any audio experience which does not conform to the new standards they negate 5000 years of human experience in exchange for an extra 20 dB of signal to noise ratio. This is not consumer fetishism, this is consumer fascism.

Digital-Aryans begin the new inquisition.

A new crusade promises to save the world frin its past sins of tape hiss, wow and flutter, and record surface noise. Scratchy old records must be "cleansed" and re"mastered" (or simply discarded). Field recordings are considered 'unusable.' Masses flock with great alarm to expect new standards of audio conformity. Preprogrammed factory presets seduce users into convenience oriented approaches. Sounds become controlled by marketing committees and are spoon-fed to eager audio sheep. Under the aegis of multi-national electronic corporations, music produced is little more thand brand endorsements which have nothing to do with feelings and everything to do with disassociation. Human experience (and expression) is entirely ignored. The frenze of indigenous chants echo no more. Studios become an Auschwitz for sounds. A cold sterile laboratory where nothing lives. Souls are reduced to binary data. The heart is discarded, its wonderfully irregular beat simply doesn't live up to click tracks.

Digital audio is a crock of shit...

...At this very moment scores of living, breathing human beings plot the revolution. An underground subculture of non-believers quetly stock-pile noisy vacuum tubes, oversized reel-to-reels, spring reverbs, and tape delays. They use razor blades to edit with. They smile when the meter goes into the red. They not only tolerate human error, they leave it in the mix. They strive for a value system which places the mundane material world in a healthy context...

-Larry Thrasher