Bollani, who emerged from under the wings of Enrico Rava's ensembles and with whom he maintains an uncanny musical empathy, is a pianist who is almost too gifted. On this, his third solo endeavour, he takes the slightly scary route of adding his own vocals on a couple of tunes. Not that the pianist/singer is unknown in jazz, from early Nat King Cole via Mose Allison to the wittily acerbic Dave Frishberg, there have been some wonderful moments; but it's just such a challenging thing to get right for a pianist who suddenly decides he wants to sing – even Oscar Peterson couldn't pull it off. Once we get past the instrumental ‘Quando, Quando, Quando’ on Fender Rhodes (his favoured instrument for most of the album) we are left wondering what exactly the point of all this is going to be. ‘Microchip’ presents a theatrical introduction to his vocal efforts, the other ‘vocal’ tracks being ‘Un Viaggio’ and ‘Arrivano Gli Alieni,’ and you wonder why the record producer (if there was one) didn't tap him on the shoulder and say, ‘Do you really want to release these tracks?’ – sometimes artists need to be saved from themselves. The rest, the solo instrumentals that is, add up to a lot of aimless messing about. It seems a tragedy that someone so gifted seems unable to focus his talent to maximum effect.