Sky Yen is the first album recorded by English musician Pete Shelley, recorded in March 1974 and released by his label Groovy Records in April 1980. It is Shelley's earliest known recording, and was created when he was in college. After developing an interest in electronic music, Shelley created a single electronic oscillator with an added potentiometer, and recorded the album on the device in his living room while utilising a two-track stereo recorder. The entirely electronic album is experimental in style, and emphasises oscillations and drone characteristics. Although recorded in 1974, Sky Yen went unreleased for six years until after Shelley had earned recognition in the punk rock band Buzzcocks. The album surprised fans expecting pop music, and received a hostile reception. More positive critical attention has greeted the record in retrospect, and in December 2011, it was re-released by Drag City as part of a series of reissues of the Groovy Records catalogue. Background and production While at college in the early 1970s, Shelley developed an interest in electronics. He purchased magazines containing diagrams of electronic devices readers could create, one of which he later described as "a simple thing where you could get one of those etch resist pens and a sheet of plastic with copper on one side, and you could draw your circuit on this, then put it in an acid bath to dissolve the copper, except for the bits where you'd drawn this thing, and then you could solder your components in, and you ended up with this thing that made a siren noise." Inspired by this, Shelley decided to experiment and create his own oscillator. He added a potentiometer, which he described as an ideal resistor, to the device so he could alter the pitch, and purchased a Tandberg two-track stereo recorder which allowed him to "do sound on sound by bouncing from one track to another." He discovered that, by putting his fingers in the oscillator – which, running on a 9-volt battery, was not deemed a risk – he himself would "become part of the circuit," explaining that the sound would be affected by the sweat on his fingers or "which bits you'd randomly touch", and thus creating unusual tones. He later said: "I became another resistance, and so had a touch-sensitive way of coming up with really weird things." Recorded on Shelley's purpose-built oscillator in March 1974, Sky Yen was