The Alan Parsons Project – The Sicilian Defence (2014/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 39:57 minutes | 399 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Arista – Legacy
The Sicilian Defence is the twelfth studio album by The Alan Parsons Project, released in 2014. It was named after the Sicilian Defence, a famous chess opening. This was the final Alan Parsons Project studio album to be released, 24 years after the split of the band, and it has so far only been available as part of the eleven-CD box set The Complete Albums Collection (which omits the original mix of Tales of Mystery and Imagination and all bonus tracks from previous expanded reissues).
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The Alan Parsons Project – The Instrumental Works (1988/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:08:22 minutes | 750 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Arista – Legacy
The Instrumental Works is a 1988 compilation album by The Alan Parsons Project, featuring many of the band’s instrumental tracks.
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Genre: Symphonic Rock
Year Of Release: 2023
Duration: 00:40:25
Label: Esoteric Recordings – ECLEC42798
Quality: Blu-ray
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video 0 kbps 1080p / 23,976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: LPCM Audio English 4608 kbps 2.0 / 96 kHz / 4608 kbps / 24-bit
A Multi Region Blu Ray Edition Of The Classic Album By The Alan Parsons Project. Remastered And Remixed From The Original Master Tapes By Alan Parsons. Featuring A Stunning New 5. 1 Surround Sound From The Original Multi-Track Master Tapes By Alan Parsons And 4 Promotional Videos. Includes An Illustrated Booklet With New Essay. First released in November 1980, ‘The Turn Of A Friendly Card’ was the fifth album by The Alan Parsons Project, the brainchild of composer, musician and manger Eric Woolfson and celebrated producer and engineer Alan Parsons. Inspired by their time in Monte Carlo, this legendary album was recorded in Paris. The album sessions featured the contribution of musicians such as Ian Bairnson (guitars), David Paton (bass), Stuart Elliott (drums) with Eric Woolfson playing keyboards and providing lead vocals, along with Elmer Gantry, Chris Rainbow and Lenny Zakatek. It became one of the biggest selling albums for The Alan Parsons Project, attaining gold status in many European countries and the USA.
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The Alan Parsons Project – I Robot (1977) [MFSL 2016]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 41:16 minutes | Scans included | 1,69 GB
or FLAC (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/96 kHz | Full Scans included | 950 MB
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab # UDSACD 2174
I Robot is the second studio album by English progressive rock band The Alan Parsons Project. The album draws conceptually on author Isaac Asimov’s science fiction Robot trilogy, exploring philosophical themes regarding artificial intelligence.
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The Alan Parsons Project – Eye In The Sky (1982) [MFSL 2021]
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 42:39 minutes | Scans included | 1,31 GB
or DSD64 2.0 (from SACD-ISO to Tracks.dsf) > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Full Scans included | 1,18 GB
or FLAC (carefully converted & encoded to tracks) 24bit/96 kHz | Full Scans included | 1,1 GB
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab # UDSACD 2221
The opening track to the Alan Parsons Project’s Eye in the Sky remains the most recognized instrumental in sports – fanfare inseparably tied with introducing NBA legend Michael Jordan and his six-time world-champion Chicago Bulls mates before games, and still used by many teams as an energy-raising prelude. Indeed, the subdued grandiosity, cosmic bluster, and lights-out wonder of “Sirius” also sets the table for the band’s smash 1982 album, whose hallmark smoothness, lushness, and balance reach epic heights on Mobile Fidelity’s collectible reissue. Mastered from the original master tapes, this numbered hybrid SACD of Eye in the Sky features succulent warmth, magnificent balance, low-end heft, and see-through transparency that takes you into the studio with Parsons and creative partner Eric Woolfson at Abbey Road. this super-clean edition will test the full-range capabilities of the world’s finest stereo systems.
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The Alan Parsons Project – The Turn Of A Friendly Card (1980/2015)
DSD64 (.dsf) 1 bit/2,8 MHz | Time – 40:43 minutes | 1,06 GB
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/176,4 kHz | Time – 40:43 minutes | 1,82 GB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download Source: AcousticSounds | Artwork: Front cover | Genre: Rock | © Arista Records
The Turn Of A Friendly Card was inspired by the theatricality of casino gambling as exemplified in Las Vegas and Monte Carlo. The concept of ‘risk’ at the gambling tables has obvious parallels to the risks we take in life. An All-Time Audiophile Favorite – First time in DSD, still not available as SACD!
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The Alan Parsons Project – I Robot (1977/2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/192 kHz | Time – 41:02 minutes | 1,46 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: Qobuz | Front Cover | © Arista – Legacy
Alan Parsons delivered a detailed blueprint for his Project on their 1975 debut, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, but it was on its 1977 follow-up, I Robot, that the outfit reached its true potential. Borrowing not just its title but concept from Isaac Asimov’s classic sci-fi Robot trilogy, this album explores many of the philosophies regarding artificial intelligence — will it overtake man, what does it mean to be man, what responsibilities do mechanical beings have to their creators, and so on and so forth — with enough knotty intelligence to make it a seminal text of late-’70s geeks, and while it is also true that appreciating I Robot does require a love of either sci-fi or art rock, it is also true that sci-fi art rock never came any better than this. Compare it to Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds, released just a year after this and demonstrating some clear influence from Parsons: that flirts voraciously with camp, but this, for all of its pomp and circumstance, for all of its overblown arrangements, this is music that’s played deadly serious. Even when the vocal choirs pile up at the end of “Breakdown” or when the Project delves into some tight, glossy white funk on “The Voice,” complete with punctuations from robotic voices and whining slide guitars, there isn’t much sense of fun, but there is a sense of mystery and a sense of drama that can be very absorbing if you’re prepared to give yourself over to it. The most fascinating thing about the album is that the music is restless, shifting from mood to mood within the course of a song, but unlike some art pop there is attention paid to hooks — most notably, of course, on the hit “I Wouldn’t Want to Be Like You,” a tense, paranoid neo-disco rocker that was the APP’s breakthrough. It’s also the closest thing to a concise pop song here — other tunes have plenty of hooks, but they change their tempo and feel quickly, which is what makes this an art rock album instead of a pop album. And while that may not snare in listeners who love the hit (they should turn to Eye in the Sky instead, the Project’s one true pop album), that sense of melody when married to the artistic restlessness and geeky sensibility makes for a unique, compelling album and the one record that truly captures mind and spirit of the Alan Parsons Project.
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The Alan Parsons Project – I Robot (1977/2012)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 00:40:58 minutes | 1,63 GB | Genre: Rock
Official Digital Download – Source: AcousticSounds | © Arista Records
Recorded and mixed at Abbey Road Studios, London, between December 1976 and March 1977.
The man behind the recording of Dark Side of the Moon is none other than Alan Parsons. If you want to hear what is his definitive recording and a bit of the Dark Side then this is it. I Robot was produced and engineered by Alan at Abbey Road Studios and is an audiophile’s dream recording. Transferred on an all-tube cutting system from the original 1/4″ analog master tapes at Bernie Grundman Mastering.
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Artist: The Alan Parsons Project
Title: Eye In The Sky – 35th Anniversary
Genre: symphonic/art rock
Label: © Arista, UK
Release Date: 1982/2017
Quality: Blu-ray Audio
Duration: 42:58
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 12990 kbps / 1080p / 23,976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: English / DTS-HD Master Audio / 5.1 / 96 kHz / 7873 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Audio: English / LPCM Audio / 5.1 / 96 kHz / 13824 kbps / 24-bit
Audio: English / LPCM Audio / 2.0 / 192 kHz / 9216 kbps / 24-bit
The 35th anniversary Eye in the Sky collector’s box set includes 3 CDs (CD1: Original Album Expanded + bonus tracks, CD2: Eric Woolfson’s Songwriting Diaries, CD3: Previously Unreleased Bonus Material and Disc 4: 5.1 Surround Sound and Stereo HD version of the original album on Blu-ray). Also included are 2 vinyl LPs ( the original album newly struck at half speed on four sides at 45rpm at Abbey Road Studios by Miles Showell), a flexi-disc replica of an original 1982 promo, a 60-page hardback book featuring newly-written essays, previously unreleased images recently discovered in Eric Woolfson’s personal archive and new interviews with many of the musicians who recorded the tracks on the album, an Eye in the Sky 1982 replica poster and postcard, a gold-foil Eye of Horus stamp on the front of the box and more.
All of the newly discovered bonus material on Eye in the Sky has been lovingly and painstakingly restored to produce the best possible state-of-the-art listening experience for longtime fans and newcomers to the album.
The Alan Parsons Project – Eye In The Sky (1982) [Reissue 2005]
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 42:41 minutes | 1,62 GB | Genre: Rock
DAD to Hi-Res FLAC – Source: Classic Records’ HDAD 2011 | Cover
Eye in the Sky provided the Alan Parsons Project with their first Top Ten hit since 1977’s I Robot, and it’s hard not to feel that crossover success was one of the driving forces behind this album. The Project never shied away from hooks, whether it was on the tense white funk of “I Wouldn’t Want to Be Like You” or the gleaming pop hooks of “Games People Play,” but Eye in the Sky was soft and smooth, so smooth that it was easy to ignore that the narrator of the title track was an ominous omniscient who spied either on his lover or his populace, depending on how deeply you wanted to delve into the concepts of this album. And, unlike I Robot or The Turn of a Friendly Card, it is possible to listen to Eye in the Sky and not dwell on the larger themes, since they’re used as a foundation, not pushed to center stage. What does dominate is the lushness of sound, the sweetness of melody: this is a soft rock album through and through, one that’s about melodic hooks and texture. In the case of the spacy opening salvo “Sirius,” later heard on sports talk shows across America, or “Mammagamma,” it was all texture, as these instrumentals set the trippy yet warm mood that the pop songs sustained. And the real difference with Eye in the Sky is that, with the exception of those instrumentals and the galloping suite “Silence and I,” all the artiness was part of the idea of this album was pushed into the lyrics, so the album plays as soft pop album — and a very, very good one at that. Perhaps nothing is quite as exquisite as the title song, yet “Children of the Moon” has a sprightly gait (not all that dissimilar from Kenny Loggins’ “Heart to Heart”), “Psychobabble” has a bright propulsive edge (not all that dissimilar from 10cc), and “Gemini” is the project at its dreamiest. It all adds up to arguably the most consistent Alan Parsons Project album — perhaps not in terms of concept, but in terms of music they never were as satisfying as they were here. (more…)
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Artist: The Alan Parsons Project
Title: Tales of Mystery and Imagination – 40th Anniversary
Genre: Rock, Prog Rock, Art Rock
Label: © Mercury Records/Universal Music
Release Date: 1976/2016
Quality: Blu-ray Audio
Duration: 00:42:35 + 00:40:58
Video: MPEG-4 AVC 8000 kbps / 1080p / 23,976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 / 96 kHz / 7646 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 6.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Audio: English LPCM 5.1 / 96 kHz / 13824 kbps / 24-bit
Audio: English LPCM 2.0 / 96 kHz / 4608 kbps / 24-bit
A landmark release in prog rock history, The Alan Parsons Project’s debut album, Tales Of Mystery And Imagination, remains not only one of the most ambitious releases from prog’s mid-70s golden age, but also one of the finest examples of a musician putting literature to music.
Released in 1976, Tales Of Mystery And Imagination saw Alan Parsons and long-time collaborator Eric Woolfson bring to life some of the most enduring works by pioneering gothic poet and short-story writer Edgar Allan Poe. Working with a host of musicians, among them legendary God Of Hellfire, Arthur Brown, Hollies singer and guitarist Terry Sylvester, the bands Ambrosia and Pilot, plus keyboardist Francis Monkman (of cult 70s outfit Curved Air), they also managed to snag narration by legendary actor, director, writer and producer Orson Welles – a man with no little experience in bringing works of literature to life in the studio.
For its 40th anniversary, Tales… is being celebrated with a multi-disc box set, made with the full co-operation of Alan Parsons and the family of the late Eric Woolfson. As well as boasting over 70 minutes’ worth of previously unreleased bonus material, the 3CD+Blu-ray+2LP box set also includes the original 1976 album mix (half-speed mastered for vinyl at Abbey Road by leading half-speed mastering expert Miles Showell), Alan Parsons’ 1987 remix, and, for the first time ever, a high-definition 5.1 surround sound mix on Blu-ray, mastered in 2016 by Parsons himself. Rounded out with a 60-page coffee-table book boasting rare photos and new interviews, a poster, replica 1976 press kit and “taped man” sticker, this lavish package does full justice to the legacy of Parsons’ and Woolfson’s stunning work.
“The Tales album is my favourite,” Alan Parsons says today. “Always has been, always will be. It broke new territory all round.” (more…)