Harnessing the rhythmic noises of the machine age, oboes, analog voices and a chorus of synthesizers, Maya Shenfeld invites industrial hypnosis with her new sonic artwork.
Under the Sun is composed largely from field recordings made in the sweltering heat of the Vila Viçosa marble quarry in Portugal, an open scar digging 150 meters into the Earth. The title of the work is a wry reference to the famous declaration in the book of Ecclesiastes that there is nothing truly new under our star. Shenfeld draws our attention to how extraction is sculpting the planet, asking whether our moment in history may be an exception to the rabbinical observation, attuning us to the latent possibilities that lie within every scratch and hum.
In Shenfeld’s hands, the accidental noises of physical labor become percussive. The experience of sound draws us unequivocally towards the material, with long reverberations off the marble walls of the pit. Hammer, drill and diamond cutter enter the symphony. Gusts of wind from the organ at St. Matthew’s Church and the Ritter Youth Choir, conducted by Ann-Kristin Mayr, evoke spirit returning to the rattling machine.
Reethaus presents this wordless meditation on the environment — both the environments we build and the environments we take apart in order to make our own, along with all the varied dissonance and harmony we create in that process — in a unique adaptation that calibrates Under the Sun to its 360-degree sound system.