There’s nothing quite like an Alan Parsons project, whether it’s called that or not. After the sometimes morbid theme of 1993’s Try Anything Once, this album’s focus on flight is a welcome change of pace. The theme is stretched in all directions, from the legend of Icarus to skydiving to altophobia to an instrumental, reminiscent of the Project’s sound circa 1985, constructed around John F. Kennedy’s 1961 speech that initiated the Apollo program. There’s also a song sung by Christopher Cross which could be interpreted as a tribute to astronauts, both fallen and otherwise, everywhere. For many years, I’ve heard numerous critics accuse Parsons of imitating the sound of Pink Floyd (a sound Parsons himself helped establish when he produced and engineered Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon, which doesn’t lend the PF imitation criticism much credibility), but for once I have to admit that Parsons has turned out an album which is exceedingly Floydian – or, more accurately, very much like the sound Parsons bestowed upon PF all those years ago. The sound of On Air is driven by guitars, well-harmonized vocals and dreamy sound effects, and not quite so many of the symphonic textures of Parsons projects past. Suffice it to say you should enjoy On Air if you’re a Pink Floyd fan. Featured vocalists include the aforementioned Christopher Cross (yes, the same Mr. Cross of “Sailing” fame), 10cc’s Eric Stewart, Neil Lockwood (late of ELO Part II – aha! There is at last a tenuous connection between Parsons and ELO!), and Graham Dye. The album art is similar to that of Try Anything Once, but features hot air balloons instead of people hanging upside-down from ropes!
One truly unique feature of On Air is the second CD in the package – a CD-ROM with all sorts of interesting information on the band and on the history of aviation. Aggravatingly, the CD-ROM is formatted in such a way that you can barely tell what you’re doing – after a title screen and some psychedelic sound, a fleet of colorful balloons wafts lazily across the screen. Clicking on larger balloons will take you to sundry bits of information, but you can hardly tell where you’re headed – the balloons seem to sorta-kinda-vaguely follow the order of the song titles. For example, the “Brother Up In Heaven” section of the CD-ROM contains some sombering statistics on air-related deaths in peacetime and in war; “Fall Free” leads to a tribute to a deceased world champion skysurfer; “Cloudbreak” includes an interesting selection of historical aircraft with photos and diagrams; “Blue Blue Sky” part one contains literary, mythological and other references to flying (including Freud’s take on flying dreams); and part two of the same piece will show you very interesting bios and photos of the band, an Alan Parsons Project trivia game (I only got a little over half of them right, it’s tough!), and more. That last section also contains a stripped-down, looped instrumental of “Blue Blue Sky”, which would be worth the price of the second disc alone. But I’m happy to report that both disks will only cost you as much as a single CD. The CD-ROM’s format and user interface, however, are irritating and seem to offer no hints on how to get around. Where you wind up is almost a random selection, and several smaller balloons will simply explode and lead you to a silly message on a screen with a big pink fish (red herring, get it?). The people who put the CD-ROM togther must have been tripping at least some of the time they worked on it! There are also relatively silly and useless sections of the CD-ROM – “So Far Away” plays a few seconds of the song and displays an endless, monotonous loop of an ersatz NASA-like space mission patch. “Apollo”, a selection which could 
have linked to a wealth of spaceflight information, is instead a long series of psychedelic graphics and other odd bits. “Too Close To The Sun” plays a snippet of that song and then invites you to design your own wings (!?). I haven’t even found a section for “Can’t Look Down”, I keep encountering the dreaded fish! Overall, both discs are enjoyable, and it’s still good to hear new music from Parsons and friends.
- Blue Blue Sky (0:46)
- Too Close To The Sun (5:12)
- Blown By The Wind (5:22)
- Cloudbreak (4:41)
- Can’t Look Down (4:32)
- Brother Up In Heaven (3:57)
- Fall Free (4:20)
- Apollo (6:05)
- So Far Away (4:05)
- One Day To Fly (6:13)
- Blue Blue Sky (4:23)
Released by: River North
Release date: 1996
Total running time: 50:50