Starts off like an old familiar song from the past. Summer time and the living is easy indeed...The afternoon is alive and well. Insects jamming like sitars from the sixties...cool beverages being poured, waterfalls of sensory delights and indulgences that make the head swim. You get the feeling the pretty girl on the picnic blanket is going to get seduced allright, but not by the man on the bicycle (he smokes) but by all the intoxicating sights, scents, and sounds that gently embrace her like a soft summer shawl. Just the recipe to make a Late (French) Summer Romance blossom to it's fullest before Fall. I smiled from beginning to end on this listen!

Marjorie Van Halteren's brief sound sculpture lives, quite comfortably, somewhere on the continuum between Ken Nordine and Laurie Anderson. It evokes less the French countryside in August than it does Van Halteren's attempts to comprehend what's around her. As such it's more interested in trying to render the mechanics of thought than presenting a conventional audio postcard. Polished and confident, the piece does offer a programing challenge because of its style and length. It needs to be carefully placed, but could be an interesting anchor for the right music mix. It is the sort of piece that might be overwhelmed by its neighbors.