'The Sicilian Defence' was to be the twelfth studio album by The Alan Parsons Project, named after the famous chess opening move. It was recorded in 1979, and was never actually intended for release, as it was to be used as a bargaining chip in contract re-negotiations with their record label Arista. Parsons did not feel they were given adequate time to make a new album while Eric Woolfson negotiated their contract, but were under obligation to deliver one anyway, and so Parsons and Woolfson quickly recorded a series of instrumental sketches, each named after a chess move, as their final album for the label. When it was done Parsons delivered both 'Eve' and 'The Sicilian Defence' simultaneously and told the label "There are your last two albums. Now, give us a new deal". Although Arista rejected 'The Sicilian Defence' they accepted 'Eve', and the ploy worked as the contract was re-negotiated for the follow-up 'The Turn Of A Friendly Card'. Parsons freely admits that it's not their best work, and in the early days he tried to disown it completely, even hoping that the tapes no longer existed, but they did survive and the album finally saw the light of day in 2014 on 'The Complete Albums Collection' anthology, although that is currently the only way that you can hear it. Parsons is now happy that its release is fulfilling a need to document, historically, the entire catalogue of The Alan Parsons Project, and so if you don't own the 2014 box-set then you can now give it a listen see if you agree with him.
Track listing
01 P-K4
02 P-QB4
03 Kt-KB3
04 ...Kt-QB3
05 P-Q4
06 PxP
07 KtxP
08 Kt-B3
09 Kt-QB3
10 P-Q3
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