La Musica!

For all my Italian-speaking friends...

Here's an oddity from Air. They're French, but don't hold that against them. On this set, they team up with Alessandro Baricco, Italian poet/writer, to tell some stories in the gunslinger vein. Says Vik Bansal, from MusicOHM,

City is a best-selling Italian book by Alessandro Baricco, "Italy's most famous contemporary writer", and City Reading, as the name implies, consists of the author reading passages from the book with original music by Air in the background.

The review is not the most complimentary, but I think the reviewer misses the point. These are songs for a drowsy Sunday afternoon, suitable as background while playing Scrabble. The music is sublimely mellow- hey, it's Air, after all- and the vocals are suitably subdued to match the drones, bleeps and fuzzy guitars. Anyways, I'll let you judge for yourself.

Here's the Box. Just hit the play button on the first track and they'll all play in order. Better yet, download the files and they'll play in Winamp (or whatever you use for Mp3's) without the annoying pauses between songs.