The Alan Parsons Project – The Sicilian Defence (2014)

Back in 1981, the Alan Parsons Project and Arista Records were locked in tense contract negotiations that weren’t going anywhere — at least to the liking of Parsons and his late partner Eric Woolfson. That gave birth to The Sicilian Defence, a not-so-subtly titled kiss-off album designed to fulfill contractual obligations and subsequently shelved when the two parties came to terms.
The Sicilian Defence was created by Parsons and Woolfson over a three-day session at France’s Bear Studios and delivered to Arista Records in March 1981 amid tense contract negotiations between the Project and Clive Davis’ Arista label. The title derived from the name of a series of opening chess moves, which was apt considering the circumstances surrounding it.Reportedly a dissonant, atonal collection that was far-removed from what Davis expected of the band, The Sicilian Defence was shelved. The Project remained on Arista through 1987’s Gaudi, its final release. (Parsons and Woolfson resumed their collaboration on the 1990 album Freudiana, the studio cast recording of a Woolfson-composed rock opera.) An edited version of “Elsie’s Theme” from The Sicilan Defence was included as a bonus track on an expanded edition of the 1979 album Eve, but the full-length track and the album from which it was derived makes its first-ever appearance as part of Legacy Recordings’ 11-CD box set The Alan Parsons Project: The Complete Albums Collection.