Death by Water opens with a recording of living water, natural water, water swashing and swishing, but then that swish is replaced by a throb like an aural strobe light, and from then on the water is under outside control. Any attempt to re-establish that original, natural swish is interrupted, and forced to squeak or echo, or turn into a hiss or some other unnatural sound. Liquid muscles harden into metal and wire and melt back again, then pause ambiguously between the two states, and then chop around with abruptness. This goes on for forty-one minutes, until one wonders whether the water at the beginning was really natural.  It’s city water. The recordings were made in Venice. Artifice everywhere.