Air
City Reading (+ Baricco)

I like listening to Air.
And I like reading Baricco.
2+2=4, I like these readings from the novel "City" by Baricco and set to music by Air.

And yet 2+2=5, as someone (will) say, the logic doesn’t hold. Because this is not a new album by Air, nor a novel by Baricco.
These are "three western stories," three readings originally presented in theater in Rome last year and now re-proposed in this bold concept album.

"I chose Air because I went to one of their concerts, in Milan, and I was blown away. There was, in that music, an idea of time that seemed very close to the anomalous time of reading aloud," explains Baricco.
It's true, I was blown away too. And it's also true that the evocative and dramatic sound of Air lends itself well to accompany Baricco's voice in reading, just listen to the initial "Bird," amidst enveloping keyboards and suggestive guitar touches.

What is missing then? The dynamism.

In "La puttana di Closingtown" and in "Caccia all’uomo," the other two stories, the sound remains a flat background, without highs and lows, devoid of rhythm, so that without movement, Baricco's voice alone inevitably becomes monotonous and repetitive as the minutes pass.
Surely, live on a theater stage, the result would sound different. In its absence, it's better to listen to "Moon Safari" while reading "City."

Or read "City" while listening to "Moon Safari."