New reissue of The Alan Parsons Project's I Robot to be released in October

The Alan Parson's Project's second studio album, 1977's I Robot, is to be reissued in various formats through Cooking Vinyl on October 18.

The expanded CD release includes a new 2025 remaster of the original album by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios, along with four additional bonus tracks and a fully illustrated, 12-page booklet containing sleevenotes featuring quotes from Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson as well as lyric sheet.

The album will also be released on various vinyl formats, including 180g classic black vinyl, and limited edition, 180g heavyweight clear vinyl, featuring half-speed remasters by Showell at Abbey Road Studios

There will also be a limited edition Super Deluxe Box Set which contains four CDs and 1 Blu-ray Disc containing the I Wouldn’t Want To Be Like You promotional video and interview footage of Eric Woolfson discussing the I Robot album, and a 45rpm 180g heavyweight LP vinyl edition in a gatefold sleeve, half-speed remastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios. With an additional 70 bonus tracks (47 of them previously unreleased) taken from studio sessions out-takes, the collection features stunning Dolby Atmos and 5.1 Surround Sound mixes by Alan Parsons from the original multi-track master tapes, along with a new stereo HD & CD remaster of the original album by Showell. Also included is a fully illustrated 12” x 12” casebound book featuring interviews with Alan Parsons, the Woolfson family, and the musicians, as well as full lyrics and commentary on the bonus tracks, an A1 poster and a reproduction press kit folder.

The Alan Parsons Project released I Robot, a concept album exploring philosophical themes regarding AI on the back of Isaac Asimov's Robot series of books, in the wake of the release of Star Wars in the US, and its overt science fiction theme certainly helped propel the album up the charts.

“We brought out I Robot almost exactly at the same time as Star Wars was released," Parsons recalls. "Of course, Star Wars featured robots, and the only record sleeves in stores, especially in America, that had a robot on it was ours. Having a robot-like figure on the cover worked very much to our advantage.”

The album featured core APP musicians, guitarist Ian Bairnson, bass player David Paton, drummer Stuart Tosh, with Eric Woolfson on keyboards and arrangements by Andrew Powell, alongside an array of different vocalists including Steve Harley, Allan Clarke, Lenny Zakatek, Peter Straker, Jack Harris and Jaki Whitren.