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Also known as The Tomita Planets, this is Japanese synth whiz Isao Tomita’s rendition of Gustav Holst’s The Planets. Tomita used no traditional acoustic instruments, but did lean somewhat on the traditional arrangement. Opening with a bit of vocoder-and-synth “babble” to set the mood, Tomita launches into an energetic “Mars, The Bringer Of War” which appropriately now sounds like it belongs to the space age.

The same treatment is delivered on the other pieces in the suite, with “Venus: The Bringer Of Peace” and “Jupiter: The Bringer Of Jollity” getting an especially spacey treatment; the synth work on “Mercury: The Winged Messenger” dates it a bit, but for something recorded over 30 years ago, the whole thing still manages to sound futuristic. In places you might even catch a hint of the synthesized “whistle” sound which Tomita also used on what is arguably his most famous recording, Debussy’s “Arabesque No. 1″, also known as the theme song for Jack Horkheimer’s PBS stargazing show.

Of the outer planet pieces, “Saturn, Bringer of Old Age” and “Neptune, The Mystic” are the real highlights; “Saturn” ticks away like a time bomb with a synth “tick-tock” motif and flanged synths a la Jarre or Vangelis. “Neptune” has long been my favorite part of The Planets - I’ve always felt that it may be the most spiritual piece of music that anyone in the western world has ever composed (take that, Handel!) - so I was eager to see what Tomita would do with this particular segment. For the most part, “Neptune” sticks almost slavishly to the traditional arrangement, allowing enough wiggle room for some interesting changes in emphasis and “instrument” balance.

Overall, Tomita’s rendition of The Planets is interesting, a fascinating listen, but I can’t help but feel that there one could go further “out there” with arrangements and instrumentation, further afield from the orchestral arrangements that we’re all so used to. Other interpretations by folks like Rick Wakeman and Jeff (Musucal Version of War Of The Worlds) Wayne have also failed to break out of the orbit of the orchestral Planets. I know that there’s only so far one can go without actually changing the music itself, but within that limitation, I don’t think all the possibilities have been fully explored. Tomita does a good job, but The Planets could probably stand up to more intense, offbeat exploration.

1. Mars: The Bringer Of War (10:58)
2. Venus: The Bringer Of Peace (9:20)
3. Mercury: The Winged Messenger (4:37)
4. Jupiter: The Bringer Of Jollity (9:22)
5. Saturn: The Bringer Of Old Age (8:41)
6. Uranus: The Magician (2:14)
7. Neptune: The Mystic (6:49)

Released by: RCA Victor
Release date: 1976
Total running time: 52:01

The very first album by the team of Alan Parsons, Eric Woolfson and their various and sundry cohorts, Tales Of Mystery And Imagination: Edgar Allan Poe - the album - was originally intended to be known as The Alan Parsons Project. It was only when radio DJs needed an artist/band name to latch onto, and a second album was in the works, that the Project became the name of this new musical entity. One gets the impression, though, that for those involved, Tales remains the favorite project, despite the wider success of later Project albums like I Robot and Eye In The Sky. With no studio pressure to highlight a specific vocalist even if their voice wasn’t right for the song, with no precedent or road map for what they were doing, there was no real boundary for Parsons and Woolfson to adhere to while making Tales. Their first album may well remain the best expression of what the two were trying to do. Part prog rock, part film-score-for-a-movie-that-never-was, there hasn’t been anything like Tales since.

The 1987 disc, which had already been digitally remastered 20 years ago, doesn’t seem to be noticeably remastered any further except to make it louder. (A tangent here: I sometimes wonder if cranking up the audio level and risking signal-flattening compression isn’t the real essence of a lot of modern-day “remastering”. I’m not saying that’s necessarily the case here, but it’s something I wonder about.) Everything still sounds good.

The first bonus track is a series of excerpts from the album’s vocal songs featuring guide vocal tracks by Eric Woolfson. Recorded to give the songs’ actual guest vocalists an idea of how to approach a given song, what these guide vocals may demonstrate most effectively is that Woolfson doesn’t have a voice for every occasion; “(The System Of) Doctor Tarr And Professor Fether” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” just aren’t for his voice. “The Cask Of Amontillado” and “To One In Paradise” fare better with Woolfson vocals, but ultimately other people sang them on the finished recordings, and sang them better. Also interesting is how closely the backing tracks resemble the final recordings - there are only minor differences.

The complete reel of Orson Welles’ spoken-word introductions, interstitial pieces (not all of which were used) and the copy for the radio spots advertising Tales is included, and it’s an interesting listen. There just aren’t too many voices like Welles’ anymore, and the finished radio spot is included in its full glory on the 1976 disc. To the ears of the iPod generation, phrases like “a record album that will live in your memory forever” are either meaningless or ironically humorous; to the ears of someone like me who actually bought this album on vinyl once long ago, it brings a bit of a sad smile.

Even further afield than the radio spot is a section of sound effects, placed within the context of one movement of “The Fall Of The House Of Usher”, which has the listener walk through a sinister creaky door…and into a busy airport terminal full of sea lions and sheep. The liner notes are pretty clear that this was never meant for prime time, but was assembled by the producers for their own amusement at the time.

The first disc wraps with “GBH Mix: Unreleased Experiments”, revealing bits and pieces of what I suspect are several abandoned songs, including one that would’ve set “The Murders In The Rue Morgue” to music. There’s an incredible disparity between the handful of musical ideas here, and while the liner notes claim that the ragtime-esque portion that opens this track was a step on the road to “Doctor Tarr And Professor Fether”, I’m just not hearing it. Very strange stuff.

The 1976 disc presents Tales as it was originally released in 1976, minus the Orson Welles narrations and the various retouches and remixes done for the 1987 remastered edition. Again, this edition of Tales had already been remastered and re-released (by Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs, no less, in a limited edition that became a top-dollar collectible like many of MFSL’s re-releases), so it sounds as good as the more recent version.

The first bonus track accompanying the 1976 album is an early, early, early demo of “The Raven”, lacking fully formed lyrics or just about any of the production signatures that would come to be sonically associated with the Project - primarily because the demo pre-dates Parsons’ involvement. About 5/6 of the melody of “The Raven” as finally released is there, but the lyrics are barely recognizable, a bit ranting, and aren’t helped by Woolfson’s strained attempt at hard-biting rock vocals.

The next unreleased track, an Eric Woolfson demo called “Edgar”, is something that the record company strongly urged (i.e., in no uncertain terms) Woolfson to leave off the album, and for once, the suits were right on the money here. While the rest of Tales is derived from Poe’s actual works, “Edgar” would’ve been a piece of conceptual cotton candy amidst the Grand Guignol, something better suited to Woolfson’s stage musical work than to this album. It’s hard for me to really explain why this song doesn’t work, except to say this: instead of being based on one of Poe’s works, “Edgar” is obviously about Poe, and as such it does the musical equivalent of breaking the fourth wall. It’s so lightweight and fluffy that it would’ve been at odds with virtually the entire rest of the album. It’s interesting to hear it as a kind of deleted scene, but yeah, this had no place on this album.

Bringing things to a close is a vintage interview, dating back to Tales‘ original release, with Parsons and Woolfson, discussing - among other things - who came up with the idea of a Poe-centric album, how many musicians (and therefore how much money) were involved. File this one under “interesting time capsule” along with the Orson Welles voice-overs.

With the silly-going-on-insane prices commanded by the Mobile Fidelity re-release of the original Tales, this 2-CD set is easily worth the price of admission to hear both versions of the album, and the selection of bonus material is enlightening. As much as I admire Eric Woolfson’s songwriting chops, “Edgar” and some of “GBH Mix”’s more bizarre segments make it very clear that Woolfson needed someone to help organize his sonic ideas and restrain some of his more frivolous music hall moments that might’ve been fine on stage but would’ve sabotaged a progressive rock album. Perhaps more than any of the other remasters, Tales makes it clear why we now know this musical entity as the Alan Parsons Project.

1987 Version
1. A Dream Within A Dream (4:13)
2. The Raven (3:57)
3. The Tell-Tale Heart (4:39)
4. The Cask Of Amontillado (4:33)
5. (The System Of) Doctor Tarr And Professor Fether (4:21)
   The Fall Of The House Of Usher
6. I. Prelude (7:01)
7. II. Arrival (2:39)
8. III. Intermezzo (0:59)
9. IV. Pavane (4:36)
10. V. Fall (0:51)
11. To One In Paradise (4:54)
12. Eric’s Guide Vocal Medley (9:14)
13. Orson Welles Dialogue (3:08)
14. Sea Lions In The Departure Lounge: Sound Effects And Experiments (2:38)
15. GBH Mix: Unreleased Experiments (5:22)

1976 Version
1. A Dream Within A Dream (3:41)
2. The Raven (3:58)
3. The Tell-Tale Heart (4:42)
4. The Cask Of Amontillado (4:28)
5. (The System Of) Doctor Tarr And Professor Fether (4:19)
   The Fall Of The House Of Usher
6. I. Prelude (5:52)
7. II. Arrival (2:41)
8. III. Intermezzo (1:03)
9. IV. Pavane (4:34)
10. V. Fall (0:52)
11. To One In Paradise (4:40)
12. The Raven (Original Demo) (3:27)
13. Edgar (Demo Of An Unreleased Track) (3:04)
14. Orson Welles Radio Spot (1:03)
15. Interview With Alan Parsons And Eric Woolfson (1976) (8:33)

Released by: Island
Release date: 2007
1987 disc total running time: 63:05
1976 disc total running time: 56:57

Yes. You read that right. We’re talking CHiPS. Ponch and Jon. Erik Estrada and…that other guy. On motorcycles. Set to the sounds of unashamedly disco-fied music. And this is that music.

For those needing a justification, remember that Michael “Worf” Dorn guest starred in numerous episodes as a recurring fellow cop back at the precinct, and that this is a CD of music from the second season, mostly composed by Alan Silvestri, later of The Abyss, Contact and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? fame. Needless to say, CHiPS represents a very early entry in Silvestri’s career, but as far as disco goes, this CD - an unlikely entry from the guys at Film Score Monthly - certainly makes it sound like he swaggered into that career with confidence.

Things open up with the main theme, which Silvestri didn’t compose, but did rearrange for his first year in residence on the series. I’d actually forgotten how brassy and fun the CHiPS theme is, and Silvestri poured on extra layers of synthesizers, drenched with a flanging effect, for his arrangement. If that’s the packaging on the outside of the box, then Silvestri’s library of score cues is exactly what’s advertised on the box: definitely ’70s, with in-your-face brass and strings backed up by a cheerful rhythm section of flanged guitar, drums, bass and synths.

Silvestri has always been on the bleeding edge of bringing synthesizers into film scoring, earning a lot of attention for being one of the first relatively big-name mainstream composers to make heavy use of the Synclavier in the late 1980s. He’s not shy about putting synthesizers front-and-center here, either. There’s also a track of music composed by Bruce Broughton, another big name these days, created for a Halloween-specific episode, which uses synths to good effect, as well as some familiar string section horror effects - all with that ’70s beat underneath it. You almost expect it to break into “Other Galactic Funk” at any second.

Is it cheesy? Yes, it is - but when you’ve got a big CHiPS publicity photo on the front cover of the CD’s booklet, you really shouldn’t be prepared for anything but. If you grew up with CHiPS on television, this’ll probably bring back memories of sitting in front of your grandmother’s tiny color TV, wolfing down Cheetos and Dr. Pepper. (Actually, no, that’s my childhood - get your own.)

1. CHiPS Main Title composed by John Parker / arranged by Alan Silvestri (1:19)
2. Peaks And Valleys (3:55)
3. Family Crisis (5:44)
4. Disaster Squad (6:22)
5. Neighborhood Watch (3:36)
6. High Flyer (6:18)
7. Trick Or Treat composed by Bruce Broughton (5:59)
8. The Grudge (5:15)
9. The Sheik (5:48)
10. Return Of The Turks (5:40)
11. Supercycle (2:48)
12. High Explosive (4:49)
13. Down Time (2:51)
14. Repo Man (2:15)
15. Mait Team (4:07)
16. Pressure Point (2:46)
17. Rally ‘Round The Bank (2:28)
18. Matchmakers (2:42)
19. Ponch’s Disco (4:00)
20. CHiPS End Credits composed by John Parker / arranged by Alan Silvestri (0:29)

Released by: Film Score Monthly
Release date: 2006
Total running time: 79:11

The band’s final group effort before going their separate ways to new
careers, Sixpence None The Richer’s swan song isn’t one of those farewell albums that makes you feel like you understand perfectly well why they’re calling it a day. Divine Discontent is an example of the best you can hope to do with a farewell album: the listener is still likely to want more when the show’s over.

“Breathe My Name”, a twitchy song with quirky chorus harmonies, exemplifies what I miss about Sixpence already - the combination of Matt Slocum’s songwriting and guitar work and Leigh Nash’s voice is a winner when the band is firing on all cylinders.

The cover of Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over” surprised me quite a bit. I’ve heard everything from choral interpretations to reggae covers of it before, and it’s a testament to the power of the original song as written that it stands up to (nearly) every permutation I’ve heard it put through. This is one of the better covers I’ve heard, transforming into a guitar-based number without the trademark organ solo of the original. It’s also interesting to hear a female vocalist do the song.

Even more surprising is the hard-hitting “Paralyzed”, which seems almost like something one would expect the Cardigans to do. Lyrically, it goes a little bit outside of what one would expect from a Christian band with crossover success. There’s nothing in the song that just shocks me speechless or offends me, I just wasn’t expecting to hear it from these guys. I’m really pleased to hear impassioned, non-cookie-cutter anti-war lyrics from a Christian group, even if they’re pre-Iraq War.

Ironically for an album that includes a cover of “Don’t Dream It’s Over”, a paraphrase of a passage that I remember reading in a book about Crowded House springs to mind: Divine Discontent doesn’t sound like a band that’s on its way out, but a band proving it’s fighting to live. That certainly seems like an apt description for Sixpence None The Richer’s final studio album.

1. Breathe Your Name (3:56)
2. Tonight (3:52)
3. Down And Out Of Time (3:28)
4. Don’t Dream It’s Over (4:03)
5. Waiting On The Sun (2:54)
6. Still Burning (4:02)
7. Melody Of You (4:50)
8. Paralyzed (3:54)
9. I’ve Been Waiting (4:19)
10. Eyes Wide Open (3:28)
11. Dizzy (6:36)
12. Tension Is A Passing Note (3:30)
13. A Million Parachutes (6:19)

Released by: Reprise
Release date: 2002
Total running time: 55:11