Tales Of Mystery And Imagination (Deluxe Edition) (2CD) [Deluxe Edition, Original recording remastered, Extra tracks]

 

 

Create your own review

I'll never forget the first work by Edgar Allan Poe I ever read: it was "The Tell-Tale Heart," and Poe's short story about a madman who kills and dismembers an old man by whose "evil eye" he feels haunted soon outgrew the high school class assignment it had originally been for me; and the narrator's nightmares began to haunt me, too. (Yes, I was an impressionable 16-year-old, but Poe really *was* the master of horror for all ages.) Alan Parsons's rendition of the story on the third track of "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" does full justice to its sense of lunacy masquerading as clairvoyance, and the urgency of the narrator's acts, driven by the sound of the old man's beating heart, hidden below the floor boards of his room, and symbolized here by the steady bass and drum beat underlying the entire track -- except for the deceptively serene bridge ("And he won't be found at all, not a trace to mark his fall nor a stain upon the wall"), after which it returns with all the greater force, accentuated by the grating sound of an electric guitar which, along with the bassline and drums, causes some to describe this song as more of a traditional rock song than the other parts of this album.

The album starts with an instrumental based on the poem "Dream Within a Dream," to which the brief Poe quote from 1846's "Marginalia," where "Dream Within a Dream" was also published -- spoken by Orson Welles -- was added on 1987's remastered CD (the second CD of this re-remastered edition). In many ways, this quote sets the theme for the entire album, and for Poe's work in general: "There is ... a class of fancies of exquisite delicacy which are not thoughts ... These fancies arise in the soul, alas how rarely ... at those weird points of time, where the confines of the waking world blend with the world of dreams. ... I captured this fancy, where all that we see, or seem, is but a dream within a dream." (I owned and loved the vinyl version of this album long before the CD was released; but for the life of me I cannot understand why this quote was not included from the start -- unlike others I don't find it an intrusion but an enrichment. This double CD, however, now even affords listeners the long-awaited opportunity of a direct comparison between both the original and the 1987 recording.) And like the quote, the entire track weaves around the listener's thoughts and thus, leads us into the rest of the album, at the end introducing the drum-enforced bassline which also dominates the next two tracks on what used to be the vinyl original's first side.

Thus, "Dream Within a Dream" blends seamlessly into the interpretation of Poe's classic "The Raven" -- the epitome of a story about a nightly visitor from hell, come to torment the narrator and to leave Nevermore. (Parsons maintains the poem's gloomy mood, although he makes little to no references to its more explanatory parts.) And like the "The Raven" and "The Tell-Tale Heart," the album's fourth track deals with a soul damned forever, setting to music the tale of "The Cask of Amontillado," that bait used by its narrator Montresor to lure and immure alive in his palace's labyrinthic vaults one pointedly named Fortunado. The song's heavily textured vocals layer Fortunado's pleas for help with Montresor's gloating, while gentle keyboard and string tunes contrast his horrifying act. Horns, guitars and a choir emphasize the story's somber end.

The tales then move on to the chillingly hilarious account of the madhouse reigned by the inmates themselves (insufficiently "soothed" by the prior system and now partying wildly) and the "System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether," administered on their former guards.

The orchestral suite "Fall of the House of Usher," the centerpiece of the vinyl album's second side, puts to music Poe's ghastly tale of an ancient mansion causing the ruin of its owners. Here again, on the 1987 CD, Orson Welles lends his voice to Poe's words, written in 1831, eight years before the tale itself but foretelling it with its references to "[s]hadows of shadows passing," "colour becom[ing] pallor, man becom[ing] carcase, home becom[ing] catacomb, and the dead [who] are but for a moment motionless." (Again, I fail to understand why this was not already included on the vinyl version of the album -- but, again, I think proponents of both editions will be equally pleased with the direct comparison offered by this CD.) The suite's individual movements mirror the breadth of emotions contained in Poe's tale, with (alternatively and conjunctively) wailing strings, sinuous guitars, and thundering, hard-driving drums and bassline.

And as in anyone of Poe's tales, there simply cannot be an upbeat ending -- the album's last track is a melancholy interpretation of the ode "To One in Paradise," mourning the death of the speaker's love.

"Tales of Mystery and Imagination" is a quintessential concept album; the auspicious debut of that "anonymous outfit that never play[ed] gigs," as Parsons wrote in the liner notes of the remastered CD; a "project" whose name was initially not intended to be the name of the band but rather their product, the album itself. In addition to close contributor and keyboardist Eric Woolfson, Alan Parsons recruited a talented group of individuals: conductor Andrew Powell, who later produced Kate Bush's first albums, scored Richard Donner's Ladyhawke and worked with artists as diverse as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, Leo Sayer, Chris de Burgh, Kansas and the Philharmonia Orchestra; guitarist Ian Bairnson (now known for his cooperations with George Martin, Mick Fleetwood and again, Kate Bush); actor Leonard Whiting (Romeo the 1968 Zeffirelli film), Elton John's bassist David Paton, 10CC drummer and Bairnson ex-co-Pilot Stuart Tosh, Tina Turner sidekick-to-be John Miles, and Terry Sylvester, Graham Nash's replacement in the Hollies.

In addition to both versions of the album, this double CD offers bonus material such as excerpts from (spoken) interviews and an extensive booklet which contains, inter alia, the lyrics to all songs, reproductions of the original album's artwork, artist biographies, as well as a detailed essay.

If you didn't know this is Parsons's and his "Project"'s first album, you certainly wouldn't be able to tell this from the record's tight, first-rate production and musicianship. I am not the world's greatest fan of electronic music -- but this album has so much more to offer than synthesizers and vocoders. It has been one of my all-time favorites ever since its 1975 release, and I still listen to it with great regularity.

A fair number of the reviews I do (my two cents worth) are
based in reliving the experience of hearing the albums
30 or 40 years ago. All my audio enjoyment is done with
my pro Denon equipment, Hafler power amp and Polk Audio
towers. The almost 1000 CD's I own are of every remaster
I can dig up from the mid-'60s on up. All the artists I love
are in my collection. Amazon has helped to round out the
cuts I could not get from our retailers in Toronto. Good work.

UPDATE...I bought it from the wrong seller. I paid over $10 too much.
They call themselves "a long river in S.A.".....Buyer Beware....
That's me....the buyer.

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See both customer reviews...

 

Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

Search Listmania!