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A radiophonic work that takes its title from the story of Kandor, a city of Superman's home planet, Krypton, which was subjected to a shrinking beam and held captive in a large glass bottle. According to the story, Superman rescued the city and removed it, still in its bottle, to the Fortress of Solitude for safekeeping. Both story and title provide key's to Rieger's use of more or less mundane sound images taken from his daily life in the Bay Area. He has rescued them from contexts in which they no longer excite interest or attention, and removed them to a compositional context where they can be heard afresh and the questions raised: What is this? Who am I in relation to it? City in a Bottle is an exploration of ways of talking with sound free of the constraints of journalism, drama, and music. Commissioned by New American Radio.