City Reading (Tre Storie Western) is a record released in 2003 by the french duo Air (Jean-Benoît Dunckel and
Nicolas Godin) in collaboration with the italian writer Alessandro Baricco.
Baricco contacted Air with an idea of combining the narration of his text ("City") with their music. Air performed in Rome with Baricco reading his stories and with such a success that the record was made.
"City is a book. The idea was to read some pages of it aloud, in a theatre full of people, with musical
accompaniment throughout.
We did this in Rome, in November of 2002.. It went well. The audience
applauded, and we enjoyed ourselves.
So the idea became: to make a CD in which a voice is reading,
surrounded by music.
We recorded the CD in Paris, a month later. We enjoyed ourselves."
-
Alessandro Baricco and Air, from the liner notes.
The text is read in Italian although an English translation is provided with the album. For those of us that don't understand Italian, try following the music while reading the translated text.
Track listing:
Bird
1. Bird
La Puttana Di Closingtown (The Whore of Closingtown)
2. Prologo per la puttana di closingtown
3. Se vuoi capire la loro storia
4. Pat Cobhan ride
5. Fanny scivola con le labbra
6. Pat Cobhan alza gli occhi
7. Young
8. 'Affanculo
9. Quell'uomo bara, dice
10. Finale
Caccia All'uomo (Manhunt)
11. Prologo
12. Il primo giorno
13. Il secondo giorno
14. Il terzo giorno
15. L'urlo
16. Mondo sparito
17. Il quarto giorno
18. Macchie di sangue
19. Musica