I ROBOT

Last summer it happened to me to travel a lot by train, forgetting home any kind of music player (CD or Mp3, even a good old cassette recorder). So, finding myself without the possibility to have my favourite music with me, and unwilling to surrender to commercial radio stations, I started playing my favourite albums in my mind. "I Robot" came out almost worn out, considered how much I "played" it, and when I came back home I really felt the need to listen to it from the speakers of my stereo. I didn't remember that it was so beautiful. I've always liked it, but now I've put an extra value to it. The instrumental pieces here are work of genius: just listen to the iterative and obsessive crescendo of the title track, insisting on the recurrent alternation of some basic tunes, and you'll understand what I'm talking about. Instinctively you'd compare it to any piece by J.M. Jarre or the Tangerine Dream, but here you find something very personal, and the production is unbelievably perfect and yet deeply human (this goes for the whole album, of course). "Genesis..." has got the same kind of structure, but in a more romantic vein; tunes build up the track layer by layer, with a sort of desperate mood. "Eclipse" is the track I like less, an attempt in contemporary classical music which owes too much to Ligeti and Nono. However, the ignored masterpiece of the album is "Nucleus", an astounding piece which sounds years ahead of 1977... that's really 1990s chillout, but far better and richer in atmosphere and musical experimentation. I always get amazed at this track. The other songs are as well interesting. "Days after Days" is the missing piece in Pink Floyd's production, "Some other Time" is a moving epic, while "Don't let it show" displays the melodic attitude of the Project, a piece with would be a highlight in any musical. Definitely, my favourite APP's album, highly recommended.