As an impressionable young viewer back in the mid seventies, this TV series had me on the edge of my seat, intrigued and traumatised in equal measure.
The eerie pull of Sky‘s otherworldly atmosphere was ignited by Eric Wetherell‘s soundtrack that for its time felt futuristic. Butterings of tensive harpsichord along with glockenspiel, timpani and cello that verged towards the experimental, all coupled with primitive electronics that seemed to cling to those swaying branches, or supplied plenty of dronal unease to those telepathic black eyes.
Taken directly from the original master tapes and expertly mastered by Buried Treasure’s Alan Gubby, it’s great to see the soundtrack finally getting the proper release it deserves. As with most incidental music, these tracks are deliberately short but bountiful, some as little as fortyseconds, the longest only one minute twenty-four. Amounting to twenty-six individual cues in all, some of which were originally unused or alternate workings (presented here for the very first time), it seems the drama wasn’t short of a varied accompaniment.
A few years before Children Of The Stones hit the small screen, Sky, along with The Tomorrow People (both no doubt indebted to the radiophonic endeavours on Dr Who), seemed to satisfy a curiosity for all things weird, a soundscaping that would only improve as the technology became ever more sophisticated. Adopting / adapting classical instrumentation’s tonal tug to charge the on-screen tension with strangeness.
What might sound corny to the modern ear was once innovative and I’m loving the vintage zing within this offering. That hands-on rawness of composition / oddness of vision, and the overbaked (Randell And Hopkirk Deceased-like) harpsichord action that dominates, subtly stabbed in a tasty array of percussive excitement. A fun counterpointed play of textures and ascentive slivers that messes with your mind, wind-blasted in chiming synthetics or bathed in sweet oscillation.
Eric Wetherell’s score is an impeccable treat, with a nostalgic teeter of HTV’s station ident to boot.-Michael Rodham-Heaps-
