Stereotomy


Stereotomy is the ninth studio album by The Alan Parsons Project, released in 1985.
Not as commercially successful as its predecessor Vulture Culture, the album is structured differently from earlier Project albums, containing three lengthy tracks and two minute-long songs at the end. It is a full digital production and both the LP and CD releases were encoded using the two-channel Ambisonic UHJ format.
The original vinyl packaging of the album was different from all the reissues: it featured somewhat more elaborate artwork of the paper sleeve supplied with a special color-filter oversleeve. When inserted, the oversleeve filtered some of the colors of the sleeve artwork, allowing four different variations of it. That was supposed to symbolize visual stereotomy. In the reissues, only one variant remained. The artwork was nominated for Best Album Package at the 29th Annual Grammy Awards.
The word is taken from "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allan Poe. It refers to the cutting of existing solid shapes into different forms; it is used as a metaphor for the way that famous people are often 'shaped' by the demands of fame.
Stereotomy earned a Grammy nomination in 1987 for Best Rock Instrumental Performance – Orchestra, Group, or Soloist for the track "Where's the Walrus?"
Stereotomy marks the final appearance of David Paton on bass; he went on to join Elton John's touring band, and the first since Tales of Mystery and Imagination not to feature Lenny Zakatek.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson.

Side 1

  1. "Stereotomy" – 7:18
  2. "Beaujolais" – 4:27
  3. "Urbania" – 4:59
  4. "Limelight" – 4:39

    Side 2

  5. "In The Real World" – 4:20
  6. "Where's The Walrus?" – 7:31
  7. "Light of the World" – 6:19
  8. "Chinese Whispers" – 1:01
  9. "Stereotomy Two" – 1:21
Stereotomy was remastered and reissued in 2008 with the following bonus tracks:

  1. "Light Of The World"
  2. "Rumour Goin' Round"
  3. "Stereotomy"
  4. "Stereotomy"

Personnel

Album

Singles

Inspirations

The track "Chinese Whispers" is based on the game of Chinese whispers. It has some snippets of dialogue heavily overlaid on top of each other. The words are taken from Edgar Allan Poe's work Murders in the Rue Morgue:
"...The larger links of the chain run thus – Chantilly, Orion, Dr. Nichol, Epicurus, Stereotomy, the street stones, the fruiterer."

The titles of "Urbania" and "Where's the Walrus?" can be attributed to Lee Abrams, a radio programmer for WLUP Radio and friend of Parsons and Woolfson. Eric Woolfson remembers:
"He was really quite inspirational in this album in telling us what we'd been doing wrong, in his view, on the previous albums... 'Urbania' was one of the words he came out with during the course of a long conversation. Another title he's responsible for... is 'Where's the Walrus,' the other instrumental, 'cause he was really giving us a hard time, I must tell you: 'Your guitar sounds are too soft, and your whole approach is, you know, slack, and your lyrics—there’s no great lyrics anymore! I mean, where's the walrus? I don't hear the walrus!' Referring, of course, to John Lennon's `I am the Walrus’..."

Abrams is frequently credited on Project recordings as "Mr. Laser Beam".

In popular culture

A copy of Stereotomy can briefly be seen in The Big Lebowski when Maude tells The Dude to look through her LPs.
"Limelight" was used by NBC Sports for a music video of the 1986 New York Mets during the postgame show of the 1986 World Series after the Mets defeated the Boston Red Sox in Game 7 to win the World Championship.