The Alan Parsons Project – Eye In The Sky – Arista/Sony Legacy 82876 81527 2 ****:
These two expanded editions of classic British symphonic progressive rock albums are part of a restoration project personally supervised by Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson – whose partnership in song writing and producing created ten studio concept albums between 1976 and 1987. This is the 30th anniversary edition of their second LP of 1977: I Robot, and the 25th anniversary edition of their sixth: Eye in the Sky of 1982. Eleven bonus tracks are included across the two reissues, plus new liner notes and improved sonics from remastering. (Eye in the Sky was one of the first PCM digital recordings, so presumably they went back to the original PCM masters.)
Parsons started out as an engineer for both the Beatles and Pink Floyd. He figured out how to write, produce and market albums without a real band – just a group of different musicians he hired for each project. His art-rock creations were entirely a studio product and he never did a live show, but many of his albums still topped the charts and sold extremely well. He often brought in an array of guest soloists, and perfected his studio sonic wizardry using the latest electronic gadgets available at the time. This included synthesizers, vocoders, something called the projectron, and various electric guitars. Exotic instruments such as the cimbalom and kantele are used. For Eye in the Sky Parsons expanded the frequent use of orchestral musicians in their past projects to an entire 95-piece symphony orchestra for the first time. In addition to orchestral musicians, different choral groups were also used, including the New Philharmonia Orchestra’s Chorus.
Isaac Asimov’s books “I, Robot” inspired Eric Woolfson in the creation of the pair’s album of the same name. (Coincidentally, I just finished listening to an audio drama of the first story to use the term robot – a 1921 sci-fi tale by a Czech writer titled “Rur.”) The big hit tune from I Robot was I Wouldn’t Want to Be Like You. Of the ten original tracks of I Robot, only four are strictly instrumental. Most are thickly orchestrated and many display heavy synthesizer effects. Total Eclipse features the English Chorale in the type of note-cluster choral writing similar to the Legeti selections used on the soundtrack of the Kubrick film 2001.
Eye in the Sky – said to be their best-selling album – was a bit of a departure in that the producing pair was wincing from public criticism about their concept albums being pretentious. So they decided to just go in the studio and record and only when they had enough for an album would they decide on a title and if there was any sort of theme there. Some of the tunes seemed to suggest a sort of Big Brother Watching You world – especially Children of the Moon, which views citizens as helpless pawns at the mercy of political and religious leaders. Therefore, the Eye in the Sky title idea. They felt some of the tracks had too much of an introspective mood to them, so they tried to create some on a more upbeat tone. Since in 1982 (when the compact disc just was just being introduced) they were still producing for final LP release, they assembled the introspective tunes on the first side and the upbeat on the second. (It might be interesting to be aware of this programming ploy when listening to reissues such as these.) The album’s title track had remained one of their biggest hits, and Psychobabble is also a winner.
The bonus tracks on both albums are a mixed bag, often rough mixes of tunes on the original albums, and various demos. One interesting track is a failed experiment using the sounds of small metal balls from a type of pool popular in France; Woolfson thought it might work with the robot idea, but it didn’t. Speaking of sounds, all the Parsons Project albums put an emphasis on creating the most brilliant sonic picture possible. Parsons was a pioneer in surround sound, and I’m sorry to not see any surround SACD reissues in this remastering series. However, the two-channel mixes have never sounded as good as they do on these two discs. Well, to me the new I Robot standard CD reissue sounds about 99% as good as the former Classic Records HDAD 192K/24bit reissue.
If you’re a fan of The Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, post-Revolver Beatles or ELO, and you either don’t have any Alan Parsons in your collection or you have some of the LPs but they’re old and scratched, anything in this catalog restoration should be of interest to you!
TrackList: I Robot
1. I Robot
2. I Wouldn’t Want To Be Like You
3. Some Other Time
4. Breakdown
5. Don’t Let It Show
6. The Voice
7. Nucleus 05
8. Day After Day (The Show Must Go On)
9. Total Eclipse
10. Genesis Ch. 1. V. 32
Previously unreleased bonus tracks:
11. I Robot (Boules Experiment)
12. Breakdown (Early Demo of Backing Riff)
13. I Wouldn’t Want To Be Like You (Backing Track Rough Mix)
14. Day After Day (The Show Must Go On) (Early Stage Rough Mix)
15. The Naked Robot (Early Stage Instrumental Mixes)
TrackList: Eye In The Sky
1. Sirius
2. Eye In The Sky
3. Children Of The Moon A
4. Gemini
5. Silence And I
6. You’re Gonna Get Your Fingers Burned
7. Psychobabble
8. Mammagamma (Instrumental)
9. Step By Step
10. Old And Wise
Previously unreleased bonus tracks:
11. Sirius (Demo)
12. Old & Wise (Eric Woolfson guide vocal)
13. Any Other Day (Studio Demo)
14. Silence & I (Early version; Eric Woolfson guide vocal)
15. The Naked Eye
16. Eye Pieces (Classical Naked Eye)
— John Henry
