Shelley's first known recording, and predates his time with punk rock band Buzzcocks, his best known project. The recording took place on a Saturday morning in Shelley's living room, utilising the inventive set-up he discovered with his oscillator; he later explained of the production: "I just wired it all up and started messing about, changing the speed and the pitch, and built up this thing." He subsequently added echo and other effects until he reached the desired effect. Sky Yen exemplifies Shelley's early taste for Germanic electronic music, and was directly influenced by Tangerine Dream and Cluster. Shelley commented: "I used to listen to John Peel, he was always playing a whole side of Phaedra and stuff like that". Writers have also highlighted the influence of krautrock bands like Kraftwerk, Can and Faust, and "shades of John Cage". Composition Marking Shelley's first foray into electronica, Sky Yen contains his home-made reel of electronic experiments, conducted on the musician's single oscillator as opposed to fully-fledged electronic instruments. The record features two 20-minute tracks, and is characterised by the usage of drones, oscillations and noise. Trouser Press describe Sky Yen as a primitive, electronic drone album, an opinion echoed by writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine, who also feels the album resembles krautrock. Writer John Kealy nonetheless notes: "It is hard truly pin it down as it never settles into the easy drones that many Kosmische groups often employ." James McMahon of NME describes it as a "deeply experimental sound-collage". The album is fully instrumental, and the oscillations throughout the record are distorted and primitive in style. The music is also aggressive in tone, incorporating tones that feature for "longer than is comfortable", according to Kealy. The first half of Sky Yen features high-pitched waveforms, some of which hold for a lengthy period, forming a "relentless resonant backbone", while the second half was said by Kealy to have "more in common with air raid sirens than music." Release and reception In the years after completing Sky Yen, Shelley would listen to it in headphones while lying in the dark and also play it to guests, describing it as "great at clearing parties." However, despite being recorded in 1974, Sky Yen went unreleased until Groovy Records – the label Shelley started with manager Richard Boone in 1979 – issued it on 24 April 1980 as a limited edition. The album's release came after Buzzcocks' control