Bates detailed this inception in the score program notes, writing:Water has influenced countless musical endeavors - La Mer and Siegfried's Rhine Journey quickly come to mind - but it was only after living on Berlin's enormous Lake Wannsee did I become consumed with a new take on the idea.
Over the course of barely two months, I watched this huge body of water transform from an ice sheet thick enough to support sausage venders, to a refreshing swimming destination heavy with humidity.
Malone further remarked:Using a truly gigantic orchestra — the program listed a huge battery of woodwinds and 17 types of percussion, not counting the laptop — Bates renders these scenes primarily with tone colors: humid clouds of strings tinged with brass, rising from the calved glaciers; a sprawling spray of pointillist squiggles for the droplets; and a glorious haze coming from the Wannsee that felt unreal in the best sense.
[2] Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "the electronic parts of Liquid Interface are simultaneously noteworthy and yet not really the point of the exercise.
"[4] John von Rhein of the Chicago Tribune also praised the piece, remarking:The electronica ranges from actual sounds of calving Antarctic glaciers and creaking ships' masts to percussive beats and synthesized snaps, crackles, pops and trip-hop rhythms that fan out over the orchestra like monstrous ocean waves.