As neoscenes is wont to synthesize, "water fills the hall" is a sustained drift, this time through a profusion of sonic liquids that flow — in drips, burbles, washes, rushing, splashing, crashing, soothing — hard against the (lovingly graceful) machinic systems we deploy to direct those flows. The I Ching suggests that water simply flows, on and on, filling up all the places through which it moves. Nothing can make it lose its own essential nature: it remains true to itself under all conditions. What are we in the face of such an energized flux? Are we advancing or are we retreating with the tide? Will the rain wash our sins away? If we can swim, will we drown? Do we recall our amphibian soul? Are we thirsty for more? Are we simply thirsty?
With sonic samples from four continents, many cities, and, especially, many wilderness places, this multilayer movement begins in the Mojave desert, as flies collect around the body of a dead rattlesnake, the dry air desiccating the corpse; there is organ practice by the harbor in Sydney; and wandering through the Pergammon on the Spree; students protesting along the Vilna River; monsoon rains and thunders, falling and filling desert cisterns in the High Sonoran desert; telecom wires hum in moist Arctic chill; melt-waters slowly cleave the Rocky Mountains to dust; film projectors clatter while representing fluid realities (homage to mentor and friend, film-maker Stan Brakhage); Geiger counters count what heavy waters we’ve made; rains falls on the roofs of hydrocarbon-fired chariots; rivers rage, and whining pumps pump the rivers; while F-18s storm in the wet clouds overhead, and baptisms soulfully bless the swimming pools; a plague of cicadas stands ready for the waters to recede, and Noah’s ark founders on a reef.
