This month’s Electronic Sound magazine – Issue 124 – takes a deep dive into the music of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson‘s SF TV shows, much of it the work of cult British composer Barry Gray. Bundled with the magazine is a superb six-track white vinyl EP featuring some of Gray’s classic sci-fi theme tunes and incidental pieces, too.
Gerry and Sylvia Anderson produced some of the most exciting children’s television of the 1960s and 1970s. The list – Captain Scarlet, Thunderbirds, Joe 90 and Fireball XL5, to name a few of their programmes – goes on and on. And Barry Gray’s music, which was initially orchestral but later increasingly electronic, was crucial to the success of them all.
The former RAF pilot was responsible for the sonic magic of both the Andersons’ puppet shows and their live action dramas like UFO and Space: 1999. Captain Scarlet, the indestructible hero on the cover of this issue, wouldn’t have been the same without Gray’s remarkable soundtracks.
There’s a host of fantastic interviews beyond the lead feature, including the one and only Wolfgang Flür, the hotly tipped Miki Berenyi Trio, Ivor Novello Award winner Hannah Peel, Buried Treasure label boss Alan Gubby, early Factory group Swamp Children , the ever-essential Penelope Trappes and Belgian maestro Walter Verdin. Plus Kris Needs on HI-NRG, Ben Willmott on Finnish Electro, and a whole lot more besides.
All of which is totally F-A-B, as they used to say on Thunderbirds.
You can order the magazine alone, but I don’t think any Anderson fan will want to miss out on the cool white vinyl EP featuring six musical excerpts from three of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s shows. The A-side of “Spectrum Of Sound” is dedicated to Captain Scarlet, starting with the footsteps and gunfire of the opening credits, before sliding into the eerie “The Power of the Mysterons” and ending with the memorable main theme.
The other side of the record has the theme tunes of both Thunderbirds and UFO, plus a dramatic incidental segment from Thunderbirds, called “Heading For The Sun”.
“All of these different pieces show the breadth and variety in Barry Gray’s work,” says Nick Williams, the chairman of the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson fan club. “With the electronic tracks, we don’t really know what’s going on with some of them. But that’s fitting because we don’t know who the aliens are, or what they’re about, or why they’re coming.”
They are coming, though. You can be sure of that.
As with all Electronic Sound music releases, this record is strictly limited and is only available to readers of the magazine, so be sure to get your copy straight away.
• Click here to order Electronic Sounds Issue 124 magazine and vinyl bundle now
With thanks to Matthew Bookman for the news tip
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: Digital Media, downthetubes News, Magazines, Other Worlds, Science Fiction, Television
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