The Ruffled Crow

Alan Parsons was primarily an album engineer and music producer when he teamed up with Eric Woolfson in 1974. Best known for his engineering work on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and a couple of Beatles albums, Parsons was becoming a bit exasperated with the musicians he generally worked with and wanted to create music his way. Woolfson, a composer and musician, had a large work based on Edgar Alan Poe’s stories that wasn’t easy to produce.

Thus came Tales of Mystery and Imagination in 1976.

As a fan of Poe, and a fan of long progressive rock story tracks ala Rush, it got my attention right away. When The Alan Parsons Project released I Robot in 1977 I was completely hooked. I blame I Robot for my enduring love of electronic music.

This is the video for the title track from The Time Machine, released in 1999, animated by Ben Liebrand.

Finally, after many requests the instrumental version of this track with video clip as it was originally intended. This 3D animation was made in 1999 as the official video-promo for Alan Parsons – Time Machine. Mere days before completion, in surfaced that the latest Austin Powers movie at that time would mention “Alan Parsons Project”. At the very last minute a version was made with quotes from the movie, reasoning that one would benefit the other. Now for the first time ever, I present you the clip as it was intended, without Mike Myers’ quotes. – Ben Liebrand