The four organs harmonically expound a dominant eleventh chord (E-D-E-F-G-A-B), dissecting the chord by playing parts of it sequentially while the chord slowly increases in duration from a single 1/8 note at the beginning to 200 beats at the end.
Reich describes the piece as "the longest V-I cadence in the history of Western Music," the V and I chords being contained within the one chord.