Books & Ambient for Early-1900s Sicily

Sicilian countryside

I started playing Mafia: The Old Country this week. The game takes place around the turn of the 20th century in the Sicilian countryside, and the setting was executed so well that it left me wanting more media of the same flavor.

I fired off ChatGPT and Gemini deep research tasks to hunt for fiction and non-fiction from the same era. On the non-fiction side, I learned about historian John Dickie (Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia), and writer Norman Lewis (The Honoured Society: The Sicilian Mafia Observed). The fiction recommendations naturally led me to The Godfather by Mario Puzo (I’ve never actually read the book!), but both searches also turned up The Day of the Owl by Leonardo Sciascia.

Then I asked: which ambient music best suits these books? ChatGPT knocked it out of the park with this response:

Set-and-forget winners (work with any of the books)

  • Brian Eno – Ambient 4: On Land — earthy, foggy, rural; great with The Day of the Owl or The Honoured Society
  • Harold Budd & Brian Eno – The Pearl — candlelit piano & hush; lovely with The Godfather flashbacks, Loyalty
  • Stars of the Lid – And Their Refinement of the Decline — long, glowing drones; perfect for the big nonfiction tomes (Cosa Nostra, Blood Brotherhoods)
  • Loscil – Plume (or Sea Island) — unobtrusive, elegant pulse; great for steady reading pace
  • Bing & Ruth – Tomorrow Was the Golden Age — pastoral minimal ensemble; floats under any chapter

Italian/Mediterranean-tinged (for that sun-bleached countryside feel)

  • Gigi Masin – Wind (or Talk to the Sea) — sea breeze + memory; Loyalty, The Godfather
  • Alessandro Cortini – Avanti — warm, nostalgic synth tapes; The Sicilian
  • Bruno Bavota – The Secret of the Sea — gentle Italian neoclassical; coastal scenes in The Godfather or Loyalty
  • Lino Capra Vaccina – Antico Adagio — Italian minimalism, bells & mallets; old-world atmosphere for Sciascia
  • John Abercrombie & Ralph Towner – Sargasso Sea — airy guitar/ECM hush; twilight piazza vibe for any novel

Darker / investigative (when the plot turns tense)

  • Biosphere – Departed Glories — haunted, folky patina; The Day of the Owl, The Honoured Society
  • Ryuichi Sakamoto & Alva Noto – Vrioon (or Insen) — spare piano + micro-glitch; for inquiry/interviews/on-the-trail chapters
  • Rafael Anton Irisarri – A Fragile Geography — stormy but soft-edged; good for high-stakes nonfiction passages
  • Earth – Hex; Or Printing in the Infernal Method — slow, wind-scoured drones (dial volume down); outlaw mood for The Sicilian

Sacred/choral glow (churches, processions, confessions)

  • Arvo Pärt – Alina — ultra-quiet piano/strings; reflective stretches of Loyalty
  • Jan Garbarek & The Hilliard Ensemble – Officium — chant + sax in huge reverb; village-church aura for Honoured Society
  • Harold Budd – The White Arcades — cathedral shimmer; pairs with any of the histories

Lightning pairings by book

  • The Day of the Owl → Eno On Land; Biosphere Departed Glories
  • The Godfather → Gigi Masin Wind; Budd/Eno The Pearl
  • Cosa Nostra / Blood Brotherhoods → Stars of the Lid Refinement; Loscil Plume
  • The Honoured Society → Eno On Land; Garbarek/Hilliard Officium

There’s so much to explore here, and the depth is amazing! When’s the last time you heard chant + sax in huge reverb? I haven’t come across the majority of these artists, but And Their Refinement of the Decline by Stars of the Lid is one of my favorite ambient albums, so that bodes well. I listened to a couple of tracks from Wind by Gigi Masin, Avanti by Alessandro Cortini, and Sargasso Sea by John Abercrombie & Ralph Towner, and they indeed seem to be fitting suggestions.

I love this method of exploring new media. At minimum I’ve got some new books and music to enjoy, and bundling them under one setting adds extra meaning.