As innovative as Tales Of Mystery And Imagination and I Robot were, and regardless of how forward-looking more recent works like A Valid Path have been, like it or not, for most people the epitome of the Alan Parsons Project is this album. Veering off the band’s prog rock path and into radio-friendly rock territory, Eye In The Sky is tame compared to some of the more literary-minded Project albums, but it still boasts some great songs, freshly-remastered until they’re nice and crisp for this release. As overplayed-by-radio as they were in the day, it’s hard to deny the staying power and just pure catchiness of the Sirius / Eye In The Sky combo, or the popular instrumental Mammagamma. Children Of The Moon, with its lyrics more relevant now than they were in 1982, may be better than all of them put together, but hasn’t had quite the exposure.
For this most popular Project, there are only a few bonus tracks, and how much you’ll get into them is really going to rely on how “into” the Project and its recording process you are. Early Eric Woolfson guide vocal versions of “Silence And I” and “Old And Wise” are presented here, the latter of which is interesting since he didn’t sing on the final recording. There are also rough demos of the instrumental “Sirius” and the unfinished Woolfson tune “Any Other Day,” which is heard here in such an early form that it doesn’t even have lyrics. The intro for “Any Other Day” became the intro to a big orchestral bridge section for “Silence And I,” though the liner notes say that Woolfson is just now finishing “Any Other Day” for inclusion in an upcoming stage musical.
The real meat and potatoes of the bonus tracks can be found in the form of two medleys, “The Naked Eye” and “Eye Pieces (Classical Naked Eye)”. The former presents stripped-down excerpts from the recording sessions, showing how some of the songs might have developed slightly differently (especially “Psychobabble” and “Mammagamma”). But the latter is an impressive collage of the orchestral and choral overdubs, heard here without any band tracks whatsoever and edited into a medley that’s almost a cohesive, self-contained composition. Starting with the foreboding brass of “Children Of The Moon” and taking in some of the more memorable moments from “Silence And I”, “Old And Wise” and “Mammagamma”, “Eye Pieces” is how these montages should be done from here on out. It’s no exaggeration to admit that the first time I heard this track, I put it on “repeat” for about an hour and just basked in it.
The bonus features are a bit hit-or-miss, but combined with a solid album, they make this reissue worthwhile for both fans and casual listeners too. Though I’m hesitant to say this about a title from the first “wave” of Alan Parsons Project remasters, this may be as good as these reissues get.
- Sirius (1:55)
- Eye In The Sky (4:36)
- Children Of The Moon (4:51)
- Gemini (2:10)
- Silence And I (7:20)
- You’re Gonna Get Your Fingers Burned (4:22)
- Psychobabble (4:52)
- Mammagamma (3:34)
- Step By Step (3:54)
- Old And Wise (4:55)
- Sirius (Demo) (1:53)
- Old And Wise (Eric Woolfson vocal) (4:31)
- Any Other Day (Studio Demo) (1:41)
- Silence And I (Eric Woolfson vocal) (7:33)
- The Naked Eye (10:48)
- Eye Pieces: Classical Naked Eye (7:51)
Released by: Legacy / Arista
Release date: 2007 (originally released in 1982)
Total running time: 77:04
The brainchild of two UK-to-US transplants with near-legendary backgrounds in production and A&R on both indie and major labels alike, Ror-Shak is an indie club music project with so much going on under the surface that, even if you’re not normally drawn to dance music, it’s definitely worth a listen. The whole thing has quite a cinematic feel to it – there’s depth to both the songs and the production, and it just sounds “widescreen” – as much as anything possibly could.
This album, remastered and re-released on CD for the first time just a few years ago, represents the first ten years of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, formed in the late 50s to provide the BBC’s television and radio productions with “special sound” through unconventional and electronic recording techniques. Even mentioning the words “BBC Radiophonic Workshop” conjures up the old newspaper clipping about how the Queen herself once responded to a mention of the Workshop by saying “Yes, Doctor Who?” – and indeed, that’s the mental leap that most of us make when the now-defunct outfit is mentioned. This album proves that there was a lot more to the Workshop than that.
with some of the Radiophonic Workshop’s more well-known work and are curious about what they were doing when they weren’t doing Doctor Who. Fans of analog synthesizers and early electronic music will probably enjoy it too. Folks more accustomed to mainstream fare, however, may find that this album is far too disjointed a collection of sounds that are far too strange for their ear.
Released in tandem with the 30th anniversary edition of Out Of The Blue is, oddly, the last album released by anything resembling ELO’s original lineup as a band. In the years after Secret Messages, bassist Kelly Groucutt vanished from the lineup, leaving a three-piece outfit of Bev Bevan, Richard Tandy and Jeff Lynne, looking in this album’s photography like three guys angling for a chance to be extras in the background of a Miami Vice scene. With Lynne tired of touring, and Bevan tiring of Lynne’s increasingly elaborate studio sessions, this was the end of the road for ELO as a group. There’s a certain weariness to the songs that, while it doesn’t prevent them from being decent music, lets one read between the lines a bit. It was all over.
This disc brings together the sparse scores for two futuristic ’70s techno-dystopia flicks for their first official release, complete with the usual wealth of knowledge that’s packed into the CD booklet on any of Film Score Monthly’s releases.