'Tuning the Air,' a weekly Seattle guitar showcase, kicks off Thursday

The sound can be brushstroke-soft or plectrum-sharp as the melodies are passed around the room. And because the nine guitarists surround you rather than face you from onstage, there's a marvelous feeling of floating in the middle of their music, with each "current" of sound coming at you from nine different directions.

Seattle Circle's "Tuning the Air" opens its fall season of weekly concerts on Thursday. And if you haven't yet sampled this surround-sound musical experience, you're in for a surprising treat.

Seattle Circle and "Tuning the Air" are an outgrowth of Atomic Chamber Ensemble, a guitar sextet that in 2004 put out a marvelous album, "King for a Day." On the disc, original compositions and the odd cover tune alternate with brief "circulations" in which a melody is passed around, a note at a time, from guitarist to guitarist.

The headphone experience of listening to "King for a Day" is a heady pleasure.

"But it's still not the experience of being in the middle of the circle," says guitarist Curt Golden.

In an interview last month, Golden explained how the concept of "Tuning the Air" arose from certain "quandaries" he and his fellow guitar players, some of whom have played for 25 years together, ran into in public concerts. One was that, up on stage, they would instantly be caught in an "audience-versus-performer dynamic."

"Even though we worked in a circle when we were writing and practicing," he points out, "in order to perform we had to break up the circle."

The music itself was always good, he says. "But it was missing that quality of three dimensions that was the actual way we experienced it. ... Going on the road and trying to find places where we can do this circular thing — forget it."

A friend suggested that they find their own space, present their music the way they wanted, and find a way to get people to come to them. They've settled in Fremont Abbey Arts Center.

To reach the performance level of a touring band that plays night after night, they committed themselves to weekly shows through much of the year. The idea was to take a "slow boil" approach to musical liftoff — and it works.

The shows are lightly amplified to make sure the audience members can hear everything, no matter where they're sitting. Each concert is enhanced by subtle, computer-controlled changes in lighting. While some of the ensemble's original material can be intricate and thorny, the "circulations" are like an airy palate cleanser.

The cover tunes — ranging from the Beatles and the Ventures to Charles Ives and Shostakovich — also serve a special purpose in the show, giving the audience a kind of key into the ensemble's process.

"If we barraged them with 60 minutes of music they've never heard, in a format they've never heard, it could be overwhelming. But a couple of times during the set," Golden says, "they get a chance to hear how something they already know gets organized — which gives insight into how to listen to the things they're not so familiar with."

Tune in once, and you may find yourself dropping by repeatedly.

Michael Upchurch: mupchurch@seattletimes.com