SKY 2

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.