For this month's Electronic Sound cover feature, we're taking a deep dive into the music of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's sci-fi TV shows, much of it the work of cult British composer Barry Gray. We're bundling the magazine with 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 of their programmes – 'CAPTAIN SCARLET', 'THUNDERBIRDS', 'JOE 90' and 'FIREBALL XL5', to name just a few – 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.

We have a host of entertaining interviews beyond our 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’. 

To accompany the magazine, we've put together a 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.