He, Robot: The Alan Parsons Project

What do The Beatles' Abbey Road and "The Dark Side of the Moon" have in common? For any Prog fan that may not know this elementary fact, the answer is Alan Parsons. Orignally one of the most gifted studio engineers ever, Parsons eventually began dabbling with music, instrumentation, and developing his own projects and the rest is, as they say, history.

In 1976, I heard a landmark album that was the new buzz around the entire neighborhood. The oddity that blasted from car cassette players and tower speakers from nearby stereos was "Tales of Mystery and Imagination Edgar Alan Poe". The now infamous "Bomp...bomp...bomp, bomp, bomp..." bass line clarified and identified the latest rage: The Alan Parsons Project. This first LP really kind of blew me away, even though it didn't have the A-typical Prog quality of wildly brilliant musicanship. The album instead was a rather polished thematic style that still fit the Prog profile. In short, the world was about to experience the magic of The Alan Parsons Project.

Many fantastic opuses have come from APP, but my favorite record of all from them was "Pyramid" followed closely by "Eve". The first release "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" was an incredible achievement and probably the best example yet of what I feel Alan was after. The album is a true "project" in every sense of the word. Compared to the other releases, which are not really thematic projects, Tales"remains a phenomenal package. "The Fall of the House of Usher's" prelude was inspired by La chute de la maison Usher" by Claude Debussy. Collaborator *Eric Woolfson seemed to be the Paul McCartney to Parsons' Lennon, and the two made an unforgettable team. I was never fortunate enough to see The Alan Parsons Project in concert. This I feel, is something truly lacking in my 70's experience.

Ambient Space

I was always a little bummed that the song "Voyager" from the "Pyramid" LP wasn't longer. The Alan Parsons Project sometimes embellished the first side of their albums with a rather protracted Moody Blues-esque opening sequence, ie "Sirius", Voyager", "A Dream Within a Dream". The haunting chord structure of "Voyager" really needed to be longer. "The Eagle Will Rise Again" is still high on my Prog playlist. It's faux out of tune strums remind of something on the order of cobwebbed hallways of an old forgotten attic. Almost dreary, the song meanders with a strange calm, reminiscent of past classics such as King Crimson's "Moonchild" and Camel's "Spirit of the Water."

Though the album came out in 1980, "Turn of a Friendly Card" was beautiful. I clearly remember our local FM rock station at the time playing "Time" on a regular basis, and everyone had the album! Like "To One in Paradise" from the "Tales" LP, "Time" was the perfect ambient gateway to an ethereal dreamland where the AP Project has tread so expertly in the past.