After Hurricane Arthur knocked out power in New Brunswick last July, Alex Kall lay sleepless in the dark. He wished he had someone to read to him.

Kall suffered several restless nights. But that time without power gave him the idea for Pilōtalk, a service that offers 20 to 30-minute audio recordings of mellow stories to help adults sleep.

“I was alone in the apartment. I missed my fiancée. I missed hearing another voice,” Kall said. “I started thinking about audio books, about voices reading bedtime stories.”

Soon after, Kall met his co-founders, Tom Creagh and Carissa Boer, at a Startup Weekend held by Fredericton accelerator Planet Hatch.

Boer is a recent graduate. She holds a Bachelor of Philosophy with a minor in Business. Kall and Creagh are both MBA candidates. All three have studied literature and are passionate about it.

So far, Pilōtalk offers just two ‘stories’: Beauty and the Beast, and the Gift of the Magi. They plan to release a new story every week.  

Pilōtalk also offers calming ambient sounds, such as rain tapping at a window, quiet forest rustlings and white noise. Users can access one story per week for free, or pay $1 per night for unlimited access as the catalogue grows.

To date, four narrators have been hired as the company focuses on increasing production.

Kall said Pilōtalk is different from existing audio book sites because the established sites tend to focus on a range of content and longer works.

“We’re focusing on the human connection of storytelling,” he said.

He said what makes the Pilōtalk tales especially soothing is the fact the stories are recorded on a binaural recording system.

Binaural audio is said to capture sound as humans hear it because it is recorded with a head-shaped microphone with silicon ‘ears’ , thus capturing 360 degree sound. 

Kall, who is an audio engineer, bought the device while working for Symphony Nova Scotia in Halifax as a stage manager.

For five years, he recorded a lot of classical music this way.

“Pilōtalk captures the reader’s voice exactly as you would hear it if you were lying in bed,” he said. “The reader is speaking beside you, the way your grandmother would.”     

Kall said the company also offers customizations.

“For instance, we can offer multiple narrators reading a story in different ways. Stories can even be listened to as if the narrator is sitting to the right or the left of the listener.”

The company has received seed funding from the Pond-Deshpande Centre at the University of New Brunswick.

The founders are also attending the Summer Institute at UNB, an accelerator that helps entrepreneurs meld their artistic passions with entrepreneurial skills.

The three founders are being assisted in their choice of stories by an international group of advisers garnered from well-known book sites.

“They offer feedback on our stories and voices,” Kall said. “We’re not just choosing our own favourites.”

Kall said Pilōtalk began by recording classic stories because these stories are familiar and in the public domain so the founders don’t have to worry about violating copyright.

“But we’re looking for new stories,” he said. “We’d love to hear from writers of stories of about 5,000 words.

“We’re open to new ideas, although we don’t want anything too stimulating. We don’t want lots of action and big plot twists.”

There are many reasons adults suffer insomnia, including poor mental health.

“We want our stories to help listeners feel comforted and connected,” Kall said.