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Ilario Naples
U.F.O.

Elektrotribe Records

Posted: Wednesday, February 20, 2008
By: Amy Mauk
Flash Animator / Motion Graphics Slave

On U.F.O., Ilario Naples does a lovely job of combining whimsical, plucked string sounds and grand, sweeping quasi-wind noises to give us a soundtrack for speeding down a dark foggy highway. "U.F.O." and "Area 51" are both airy and eerie, each being a soundtrack that contains conceptual movements to make the songs almost seem to tell a story. In the case of the song change at the four-minute mark of "U.F.O.," this is when the metaphorical tractor beam comes in the form of a big bass sweep. Subtle changes like this keep the songs from getting boring, but listeners won't get jolted out of ambient world by them. These are good songs for driving, drawing, or stealing paintings from The Louvre, but they're best when interspersed with other songs. The different mixes of the songs are so similar to the originals that they become a bit unnecessary, particularly when one of them is nine-and-a-half-minutes long. U.F.O. is worth adding to a shuffled ambient play list, but it probably won't change your life.