Reviews:

First things first. This disc is in Italian, thanks to Baricco, a novelist whoreads three of his pieces (subdivided on the CD into 19 tracks) over his Frenchfriends' ambient backing. As the promo material puts it: "We did thisin Rome, in November of 2002. It went well. The audience applauded… Werecorded the CD in Paris a month later. We enjoyed ourselves. Now the idea isto make a video game. But we're not really sure about that."

They shouldn't be, because based on the record it sounds like they'dmake the most inactive video game in history. Then again, maybe they ought to,since it would be really interesting to play the kind of video game where youeats lots of cheese and garlic while shamelessly ogling everything with a workingset of ovaries. (Just to keep the stereotype scales even, Americans alreadyhave the market cornered on bullying, brain-dead, and completely needless wargames.)

The reading? Sonorous and fairly nice in the background, though I have no ideawhat Baricco is saying. So is the music, though I'm afraid I know a littletoo well what Air is saying. (It's what they're always saying: "Wehave the limpid souls of corny poets and will seduce your girlfriend the minuteyou look at your watch.") Not quite as hypnotizing as you might hope, though.For that, seek out Robert Ashley's Private Lives, from 1978, on LovelyMusic, which does something similar—in English, if you happen to speakthe language.