The electronic portion of the piece alternates between algorithmically generated canons of sampled instrumental, pitched sound materials and soundscape recordings of interior airport spaces from across the world. Written during a time of isolation, where travel feels both nostalgic and also more privileged than ever— the piece confronts the minimal difference between the imagined and the real. The acoustic ensemble is positioned to mediate such a gap from a position of incomplete knowledge—of locality, pitch alignment, and performative expression. The incompleteness of the fixed materials draws upon the musical sensibilities, intuitions, and feelings of each instrumentalist that may arise at the intersection of performative listening (to the electronic part and each other) and reflective voicing (instrumentally, through microtonal pitch-matching and open articulation and dynamics).

The title of the work is taken from Eleanor Kaufman’s description of a unique verticality associated with Middle America, what we too often refer to as “fly-over” country. As she states:

In a time of physical confinement, this piece was written within the space of a second story walk-up on the edge of that vast flatness, caught between memories of movement and the presence of place.