SKY

SKY were a band of 5 excellent and versatile musicians, all veterans of the 70's music industry, performing totally instrumental music with a mainstream edge to it. The main attraction here though would have to be Francis Monkman, keyboardist of the original line-up of CURVED AIR. His work here on keys is often beautiful (piano, harpsichord, clavinet and synths), complimentary to the other band members' classical approach to composition and performance - indeed Aussie John Williams is a master of classical guitar, often incorporating jazz, rock and even folk elements in his playing. The rhythm section of Tristan Fry (dr/perc.) and Herbie Flowers (bass) are capable of handling the diversity of the involved arrangements, and lastly, a second guitarist/composer in Kevin Peek completes the line-up. As a few pointers here, ALAN PARSON'S PROJECT and early 80's CAMEL come to mind. Soft-Prog maybe - accessible, but skillfully played - much of the complexities are overshadowed by the smoothness of the production and the highly melodic nature of the songs. Side 1 features 5 short pieces, of which the stand-out would be their arrangement of Satie's 'Gymnopedie No. 1' - just love that gentle beauty, Monkman's keys are wonderfully ethereal here. The remaining tracks are mostly undemanding and pleasant on the ears - up-tempo opener 'Westway' has that noticeable APP feel to it, 'Carrillon' is classical and mainly acoustic, 'Danza' is folky, said Satie piece is superb and 'Cannonball' is again similar to APP with a commercial and catchy arrangement. The 'meat' of the album is Monkman's side-long contribution 'Where Opposites Meet' - a keyboard-heavy journey full of captivating themes, occasional odd time sigs, great ideas and shifting moods. The musicianship is tight, especially the interplay between keys and guitars. The bass playing is solid for the most part, though elaborate at times and the drums are kept simple. 3 star effort here, as massive improvement came on their next album 'SKY 2'.

— First review of this album —

This band is almost forgotten now. But their first album was a multi-million seller and the two follow ups was also big commercial successes. In other words, Sky's mix of rock and classical music hit jackpot, big time. Even I bought their albums, but later sold them on again.

This album was one of the gigs BBC did with some golden oldies art rock bands. Caravan and the Hatfield & The North is the other relevant bands. See their own albums in this series. But back to Sky and this album again......

Sky is playing easy listening music with a lot of influences from classical music, film music and jazz. The musicians in Sky has both this background and their daytime jobs in this segment of the music world. Honourable, creative jobs, I hasten to add.

The sound quality of this recording is really good with a lot of participations from the audience which I guess had a great time with Sky. If I am not wrong, there is also a DVD out from this gig so hasten over to Amazon if this is your cup of tea.

And the music here is really good. Easy listening music, but still good. The musicians cannot be faulted at all too. The music is based on various forms of guitars, tangents, drums and bass. There is a lot of long solos on this album and that even includes a drum solo. The main body of the music is based on good band work with good harmonies and interplay. The music reminds me a lot about Jarre at times.

But I am not denying that this album is good for 2-3 listening sessions before the music becomes predictable and tedious. But this is still a good album which will please their fans and others which may encounter both Sky and this album.

3 stars

Apart from scintillating harpsichord work and a general penchant for interpreting obscure (to these ears) Spanish pieces, this is a disappointing follow up to the more energetic "Sky 3". It occurs to me that this is SKY's "Works Volume 2", a mishmash of sendups with a veritable who's who of original composers and a testamenet to the influences of our erstwhile heroes, but ultimately failing to rouse or inspire even an infinitesimal proportion of that which original audiences must have felt.

Some of the chosen material is just wrong from the start. Not much can be added to renditions of "Ride of the Valkyies", "March to the Scaffold" or "Waltz No 2" (Ravel) but Sky tries anyway. Not to say that all the more esoteric pieces are successes - "Xango" sounds like the worst that TANGERINE DREAM could muster on their worst day, and "Skylark" utterly lacks the personality that one would expect in channeling Hoagie Carmichael. It's only on the playful "To Yelasto Pedi", the brooding and ALAN PARSONS like "My Giselle", and, to am lesser extent, "Fantasia" that the inferred artistic objective of the disk attains some semblance of fruition.

By now we are clearly in the realm of fan-only releases with SKY, if in fact any such individuals even exist anymore. Talent and professionalism galore, but a combination of poorly chosen templates and an insistence on playing "inside the box" ensures that few repeat spins will be forthcoming.

While parts of the excellent "Sky 2" implied a certain commercial concession to "classical pop", those aspects are virtually dispensed with on "Sky 3", perhaps the influence of newcomer Steve Gray. Moreover, while the group's relatively tame style may be irksome to some, within the context of its time this is still a rather bold endeavour.

Apart from its more understated nature - just listen to the marvelous and dignified "Chiropodie" and Handel's "Sarabande" if you need proof - the other major progression is in the jazzier accents, which suit this formation to a T. Tunes like "Westwind" and "Sister Rose" more than suggest a pull towards that idiom, and even the relatively rocking "Moonroof". While "Dance of the Big Fairies" is like "Tuba Smarties Part 2", "Meheeco" is not nearly what the bastardized title suggests. It's a full fledged prog number with spanish guitars, a worldly beat, and a kitchen sink approach to a finale that stands as SKY's ultimate moment as a band.

Some of the material is a bit more languid than most of us would like, in particular "Hello", which sounds like CAMEL on downers, if you get my drift. "Connecting Rooms" is,the quantitative centerpiece, but unfortunately that's all that can be said, as it abruptly switches between mundane themes. But on the whole this is the equal if not the peer of its predecessor, even if it might not propel the demanding progger skyward. 3.5 stars rounded up.

This is a great double album which I was very fortunate to find in great condition in a second hand shop on vinyl. It's definitely something you should look for if you love a lot of variety in your instrumental repertoire because this one has something for everyone and it is all done very professionally. I was lucky enough to get the full version because apparently the version listed on this site is missing two tracks. The first record seems to be more jazz influenced while the second record is more classically influenced. But the main thing you have here is a very exciting variety which still sounds quite cohesive and not contrived.

Hotta is a Spanish style dance piece fashioned after a Spanish rhythm. The guitars at the beginning almost sound like a theme from a western movie but the song moves forward featuring solos from everyone with the same beat continuing in the background up until the wild and crazy percussion solo, which afterwards returns to the main theme. "Dance of the Little Fairies" is a 5/4 beat with minimal percussion and a playful theme reflecting on the title, harpsichord and a classic guitar play throughout and additional percussion gets added in as it goes on. "Sahara" begins quietly with piano improv with some guitar joining in and then a jazz-tinged flamenco develops out of this. Nice guitar here. The middle part of the piece quiets down quite a bit with some lovely guitar and piano complimenting each other with bass, soon drums start in making this into a nice flowing song, the drums eventually give back the wheel to the guitar and piano as before, then the flamenco/jazz sound starts again to close out the piece. "FIFO" is an excellent prog instrumental in 4 movements, the 1st movement being the proggiest, the 2nd quite slow and somewhat ambient and the 3rd and 4th very straightforward and rock oriented. It plays around with a main theme which is established in the 1st movement and embellished throughout the other movements. "Tuba Smarties" features a (you guessed it) Tuba. This is a live track and is featured for "comic relief" as it transforms itself from a brooding tune to something that sounds like a polka and piano and other brass is added before coming to a lumbering end. "Ballet ? Volta" is a stripped down tune which sounds very baroque-ish and played on two acoustic guitars. The Ballet section is mid tempo and the Volta section is faster. "Gavotte & Variations" continues the baroque sound of the previous track and is performed solely on a harpsichord. This is an actual baroque composition written by J.P. Rameau which is made up of a theme and several variations. "Andante" is more of a classical piece performed on guitar based on the second movement of Vivaldi's Concerto in G for mandolins. "Tristan's Magic Garden" turns back to jazz/rock as this one is all percussion instruments. It starts out very minimalistic with vibraphone, marimba and timpani. The last part is a lot louder with some very excellent use of percussion and the "bass line" is played by timpani! This is really cool. "El Cielo" is a very nice acoustic Spanish guitar piece which actually mixes two Spanish themes. The second part sees the addition of other instruments to keep it interesting. This one is very nice. I love the track "Vivaldi" which is actually a Curved Air tune. This is a classic "classical-rock" tune which they claim was a crowd pleaser and I can hear why. Very cool! "Scipio" is the longest piece (not counting the multi-movement "FIFO") here clocking in at 12 minutes. This is another "classical/rock" type piece which utilizes the entire band melding together to produce something very nice. The final composition is "Toccata (in D m)" based upon the very famous toccata of the same name by J.S. Bach. This is a rocked-up version of the toccata using the non-classical band instruments with even a small drum solo in the middle. This is a lot of fun to listen to.

Definately an excellent addition to any prog rock collection, but nothing new here, just very enjoyable.

The band SKY would appeal to those who enjoy the instrumental works of the Alan Parsons Project, early symphonic period of Mike Oldfield and '80s Camel. Entirely instrumental, almost like a distant sounding Discipline-era King Crimson without the dissonance of Mr. Fripp and oddball lyrics of Adrien Belew. Better yet, what the California Guitar Trio might sound like by collaborating with the Alan Parrsons Project. Very proper and organized sounding instrumentals. The album gets better as it moves along and really starts to take off with _Cannonball_ then concludes with the sprawling _When Opposites Meet_ which has familiar themes pop in and out throughout its 20 minutes. The bonus track _Dies Irae_ is similar to the track _Vrooom_(King Crimson '95) in composition style, however - without the sheets of sound. 3.5 really, but gets a 4 rating to bump it up a bit here. The second SKY album is similar, but can't grab my attention for the entire 2 LP set. Stick with the first SKY. If you need more, then by all means get SKY 2 as well. Points of reference for production values similar to SKY in *sound* in the year 1978 are BANCO's _Di Terra_ and Alan Parson Project's Pyramid.

Sky I is as the name suggests the debut studio album from UK progressive rock act Sky. Sky has a very prolific progressive rock name in the lineup and it´s the reason why I picked this album up in the first place. Francis Monkman is mostly known for being a founding member of Curved Air and guesting on the Rajah Khan song from the third Renaissance album Prologue. Sky is not a showcase for Monkman´s skills though, but more of a group effort.

The music is very melodic, generally simple, instrumental progressive rock. Most melody lines are played by the classically trained guitar player John Williams on acoustic guitar but Monkman´s keyboards are also pretty dominant. The rythm section is pretty straight forward. Just keeping the beat most of the time. Nothing out of the ordinary. The album consists of six songs where the first five are short ( about 3 minutes each) and the last song Where opposites meet Pt. 1 to Pt. 5 is a 19:30 minute long piece. Personally I think Sky´s music fits the short song formula best. I´m a little bored when I listen to Where opposites meet Pt. 1 to Pt. 5. Sky reminds me a bit about late seventies and early eighties Camel.

The musicianship is excellent. I could have wished for a more interesting rythm approach, but I guess that´s an aquired taste.

The production is a bit thin and it´s obvious that we´re close to the end of the seventies here.

The music is very pleasant and nice but it´s almost too nice at times and as other reviewers have also pointed out this is close to easy listening background music. It´s a bit more sophisticated and interesting than that though and I´ll rate the album 3 stars. It´s a pretty average album that seriously lacks highlights IMO. Good but never excellent.

The Very Best Of Sky - an absolute masterful collection of eclectic prog.

Sky are not the most popular prog band for many reasons, one of which is the band fairly much sticks to a standard form of indstrumental music rather than tripping outside the box. Occasionally they produce some exciting music that resonates with exceptional clarity and musical virtuosity.

This collection encapsulates all that is great about Sky. The ability to trasform classics into an incredible sound experience that appeases the masses. One such track is 'Toccata', the first massive single for the band that put their name on the world map. 'Toccata' features brilliant drummiing and guitar and a keyboard sound that drives the track relentlessly. The film clip was my first introduction to the band and I owned the vinyl single as a result. I was taken aback by this amazing sound but wondered if their other material could measure up to this outstanding track.

Sadly, rarely does any of Sky's works even come close. They are capable of some great material such as 'Gymnopédie No. 1' and 'Hotta', represented on this album but overall there is little to recommend them. They do perform an excellent version of Curved Air's 'Vivaldi' and 'Skylark' is pleasant enough. However apart from these tracks the music becomes tiresome and I longed for them to step into uncharted territory. It is all too safe and confined. The band need to experiment more and produce progressive stylised music, but they rarely do. This is perhaps the only Sky album you will need.

"Sky 2", what a lovely collector's item for me in my earliest days as a prog rock fan. My Spanish vinyl edition remains a cherished gem in my collection: I haven't listened to it too often in the last two years, but from time to time I come back to it, even if it's only for two or three tracks. 'Hotta' kicks off the album on a very optimistic mood: it is basically a refined rocker on an up tempo pace, featuring solos by each member (special mentions to Peek's soaring phrases and Fry's amazing drumming chops) as the moderately exotic main motif gets cleverly reiterated. This is what I call taking good advantage of 7 ¾ minutes. It is a great opening, indeed, and from step one it is an indication that this album should be more vibrant than the debut. 'Dance of the Little Fairies' a Flowers-penned piece that had already been part of the band's live setlists before this album's production, states a dynamic exposure of Baroque- style palace music on a playful 5/4 tempo: while the dual classical guitars carry on the main motif, it is the piano harmonies and harpsichord additions that bring the definite structure for the track. 'Sahara' is one of the most accomplished Peek compositions: bearing a combination of plain symphonic rock and jazz for the Arabic main motif, it delivers a pleasant atmosphere whose eerie potential is mainly discovered during the soft interlude. So far, so good. And things will continue to be so very good with the 'Fifo' suite written by Monkman to fill the vinyl B-side's 17 minutes. The first section has the peculiarity that Monkman doubles on keyboards and a second electric guitarist, which helps the catchy motif's groove to carry out a clever dose of intensity: as usual, Fry confidently builds the rhythmic dynamics paired with Monkman's precise bass lines. Not that the band turns heavy or Hawkwind-like, but the energy level of Sky-style rock is properly conveyed. The second section, entitled 'Adagio', is a literal adagio, a slow piece with a patent melancholic mood. Section 3 returns to the uptempo elegance of Sky at their rockiest: once again we find a catchy motif delivered with finesse and gusto, eventually connected with inserted portions of section 1 plus a quotation of 'Scipio' (a Flowers composition that will appear later in the album). The suite's last section is a cleverly monotonous spacey motif that conjures images of airplanes flying through pleasant blue skies above peaceful desert lands. As the fade-out slowly begins, I wish the motif could be reiterated one more time. The double album's C-side was devoted to highlighting the individual ideas. Here is Flowers' tuba-centered piece for a circus-like theme (Fry plays some trumpet counterpoints); two classical pieces that Williams arranged for duets with Peek; an extended harpsichord solo. Well, my favorite solo is Fry's adventure on vibes, marimba, xylophone and tympani, which makes an accessible approach to the use of percussive textures in 20th century chamber. But my fave track from this vinyl's side has to be 'El Cielo', movingly beautiful, impressively evocative. Williams took two Spanish folk pieces, taking one as the verse and the other as the chorus: the final result is a captivating exercise on romance and introspection, with a controlled colorfulness and a convincing use of atmospheres. I don't need to listen to it, just remember it to feel a special, unspeakable warmth in my heart. Anyway. Moving on with the album's repertoire, next is a 'Vivaldi' cover (a hint to Curved Air, Monkman's prog alma mater): it really isn't that substantial, although it is fair to say that it works as a pretext for the musicians to show their skills craftily integrated into the whole ensemble. Something similar happens in 'Scipio', but this really is a substantial track, with heavily melodic interplaying, a well-sustained groove, a solid demonstration of inspiration and colorfulness. The album's closed down by yet another chamber music cover: Bach's 'Toccata' is given a sort of Camel-meets-Wakeman treatment that really enhances the popular motifs involved. "Sky 2" is Sky's top opus, not their last great release, but definitely, this is where the band was at top of their game. One may enjoy some tracks more than others, but it is not like the less enjoyable numbers are mainly fillers: this is, generally speaking, a well constructed double album. Sky rules!

Granny prog?

Sky were formed in 1979 through the coming together of five highly accomplished musicians. Classical guitarist John Williams had previously called upon the services of bassist Herbie Flowers as producer of his solo album "Travelling". Curved Air's keyboard player Francis Monkman played on that album, and the three began to discuss working together on a project. The vision was to bring together rock and classical music in a way which would appeal to a wider audience. Guitarist Kevin Peek and drummer Tristan Fry were brought in to complete the line up, and Sky was born.

There are certain parallels in the work of Sky with those of Asia. Both involve highly talented and accomplished musicians creating something which is hugely successful in commercial terms, but which does not fully reflect the underlying talent. Here we have a succession of instrumental pieces which even your granny would enjoy. The music is simplistic and direct with catchy hooks and heart-warming melodies. Now there is of course nothing wrong with that whatsoever, this album is a highly enjoyable listen. If it prog at all though, this is prog-lite.

While many of the tracks here have strong classical leanings, all but two are original band compositions. Pieces such as "Carillon" will sound highly familiar, its simple melody being instantly infectious. Such upbeat numbers are balanced by the more delicate arrangement of Satie's "Gymopiedie No. 1". "Cannonball" was released as a single, the chiming lead guitar melody being ideal for that medium.

The focal point of the album is the 20 minute suite "Where opposites meet" written by Francis Monkman. In the sleeve notes, Flowers hypothecates that the title reflects the diverse backgrounds of the group members. Monkman however alludes to an altogether more abstract concept involving Zen and infinity. The track takes the form of a classical piece, with varied lead instruments and moods. From a prog perspective, this is altogether more satisfactory, but even here there is something lightweight, perhaps new age, about the whole exercise.

The 1993 CD release has a bonus track "Dies irae", a piece credited to Francis Monkman but which has its roots in Berlioz "Symphonie Fantastique".

In all, a pleasant listen, and an album you can safely play to the relatives.

Incidentally, the band name apparently came about through a session of sticking names to the wall. I wonder though if it subconsciously relates to the ending of the names of some of the great composers such as Tchaikovsky and Moussoursky. Just a thought.