SKY 4: FORTHCOMING

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 a 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.