Sky

The band Sky (or should I say "the prog-rock-classical-fusion supergroup Sky...") have always been a slightly guilty pleasure of mine. They were shamelessly uncool, unfashionable, and probably admired by your school music teacher - but they had some great tunes. (And in any case, Herbie Flowers was in them - Herbie Flowers is cool, right?)Esoteric Records have reissued their first album in a very nice package that collects some bonus tracks and various clips of them on BBC television. (Their manager clearly was very good at getting them on telly!)Sky's production values were always high (nice clean, well mixed recordings - helped by the excellent musical arrangements, where each instrument has its place in the sound spectrum), and this CD sounds great. I compared it an old CD I had from the 1990s, and its been remastered very sensitively, wisely avoiding any great pimping of dynamics or tonal tweaks - just sounding slightly louder and clearer.The album hits the ground running with the opener 'Westway' (showing one of the secrets of Sky's success - their tunes always had a good beat!) and there's not really a duff number on it. There's plenty to enjoy in the epic 5-part classico-prog number "Where Opposites Meet" (the opening keyboard riff should please the ear of any Tubular Bells fan, for starters).A welcome bonus is a live version of this track, which frankly is played so note-perfectly that at times I half suspected they'd just remixed the studio tapes, putting some extra reverb and audience cheers on! - however the last 10 minutes are also included in video form on the accompanying DVD, and the lads really do seem to be there playing it all for real. (Although, there are definitely points where I hear the Prophet 5 synth, but Francis Monkman's hands are both on his harpsichord! Not quite sure what's going on there!!)You also get both A and B sides of the 'Dies Irae' single (which actually came out after Sky 2 the following year).Other video footage includes charming performances onthose bastions of BBC light entertainment, Pebble Mill and The Val Doonican Show. Hah!The original album artwork is reproduced faithfully, right down to the original liner notes.Two tiny gripes lead me to deduct a star: for some reason, "Where Opposites Meet" is included as a single unskippable track, rather than 5 seperate ones. Not sure why they decided to do that! (even the vinyl LP had band gaps between the 5 parts so you could put the needle down in the right place). And the BBC footage has been converted from its native PAL to the inferior NTSC format, creating a few wibbly artefacts on fine detail (such as John William's fretboards). Again, not sure why they did that - but to be fair, the picture quality is still very high.

A flawed but essential purchase, this CD+DVD reissue certainly contains enough rare gems to satisfy almost everyone.Both Tristan Fry and Herbie Flowers are involved in the reissues, but perhaps only by virtue of the fact that they have been interviewed for the booklets. There has certainly been some jiggery-pokery done during the remastering process. This is particularly evident on Dies Irae where the snare drum sound is now significantly different - sounds like a gun going off each time it is hit! This may, of course, merely be due to the CD listening experience, but it certainly sounds different to how I have heard it sound before. Similarly, here and there, various instruments seem more prominent to my ears than before. The DVD contains a variety of gems, the promo video for Cannonball, shot on a aerodrome runway!, and the band's first ever appearance as SKY with Tris playing a yellow, four-piece kit! Almost didn't recognise him without the array of blue tom-toms!! However, the 'live' version of Where Opposites Meet is not really live as such. It is beyond doubt that the guys are playing live, but they certainly appear to be playing along to the pre-recorded studio version. This is particularly evident when Francis Monkman tries, valiantly, to play Tristan's brief marimba piece on his electric piano, only for the sound of a marimba to be very clearly heard (which, incidentally, continues once Mr Monkman has moved over to the harpsichord!). Therefore, including the entire 5-movement piece on the CD is a rather pointless exercise - unless of course you want to hear what it sounds like when you play a record in a very large room! On the plus side, great to hear sky's first version of March to the Scaffold on CD at last (Tristan Fry's arrangement of the fourth movement of Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz), although both the CD booklet and the sleeve insist that it was the single's A side. It wasn't! Oh well. As I say, a flawed but essential purchase which would have been improved with a little more research.

Manna From Heaven to a lifelong SKY fan, this album is well overdue a re-release. The sound is really clear and clean, even in the car. This would really stand out on a good stereo system though. The video clips are also better quality than I've seen to date via old VHS tapes. It seems as if they must have used master tapes from the BBC. The audio is very very slightly hissy when it's quiet, but once it gets going you can't hear the noise at all. The picture is really very good indeed, considering the age of the material. Starting from the first interview, through the Pebble Mill At One, Old Grey Whistle Test, and concert clips. They are all clean and smooth without any noticeable video noise or compression artefacts.Edit (9/1/15), after having listened to the album a number of times, the original album tracks 1 through 6 are just perfect. The extra bonus tracks however ;-(1) Dies Irae [track 7] - overall fairly good, but definitely lacking on the bottom end with the high frequencies seeming artificially 'heightened' and loud compared to the vinyl release which I much prefer, especially some of the drum sounds sound far too 'bright' and lack punch. IMHO, there was a much better CD release of this track years ago in a SKY 1,2,3 boxset(2) March to the Scaffold [track 8] - seems strange that this was such an early single release, but that it wasn't until the 4th album to make it to a full album release, good clean sound,(3) Where Opposites Meet [track 9], purporting to be a LIVE version, it could well be, but in tandem with the Dies Irae track it again seems to be artificially 'bright' in the high frequencies - especially the drums once again lack some punch.Overall then I'm still really impressed with the quality of this set, and would happily recommend it to any SKY fans out there. Can't wait for the rest of their albums to be reissued now.