You can feel things aright that you cannot understand aright. If I were to look at Abel's Blood as blank parody, it is then a compressed cyclic mass proper and a cyclic cantata. Perhaps the compression keeps interpretation temporarily at bay, which allows a subterranean conflict to unfold. A cyclic mass today is highly artificial. However, the mass structure has remained a site to explore disembodied and anachronistic "religious meaning" within the concert hall, as with pieces such as Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. While Missa Solemnis is a ritual that is enacted in concert halls, Abel's Blood is a ritual that is performed in a religious space. The change of the playing field is crucial; as a "service" with movements Introit, Response, Anthem, Communion, and Benediction placed within movement and words. In contrast with the Missa Solemnis, whatever the meaning, it is embodies the structures of "service music". Perhaps Abel's Blood could open a space for those present to confront the world underneath what is said in religious ritual. The "proper" context is that of biblical texts and glosses that were used in the United States to justify slavery in the 19th Century; the mark of Cain, the curse on Ham. In the subterranean world, these arguments remain vital today. A confrontation with these atrocities now can only occur underneath interpretation. They cry from the ground.