Скай: Мелодия

A ground-breaking release for its time (prog rock at the tail end of the punk boom?), this album showed what five musicians who were virtuosos of their instruments could do together. The highlights are without a doubt Francis Monkman's two compositions, Cannonball and the five-movement abolsutely stunning Where Opposites Meet. This really was a meeting of styles and approaches to music-making. Carillon set the trend for Sky to include a straight, simple tune on each album, played without any histrionics, and Eric Satie's Gymnopedie paved the ground for further classical arrangements, not all as calm as this one! Dies Irae, which most fans heard for the first time when the previously (little-sold) single was included on the CD release ten years later, is further indication of Francis Monkman's unique compositional and arranging talents for this particular ensemble.