
Aníron (2001)Įnya’s singular and timeless evocation of vast landscapes and Celtic-inspired otherworldliness made her the obvious candidate to contribute to the soundtracks of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films. At one point it featured 100 layered vocals, all eventually removed. A fascinating document of an artist finding her feet, this simple piano sketch would later reappear as a transportive instrumental on Watermark. Miss Clare Remembers (1984)Įnya’s first solo release, as Eithne Ní Bhraonáin, was on a cassette compilation put out by the experimental label Touch Travel. Photograph: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy 17. Aldebaran (1987)Īldebaran’s sparkling, synthetic harp and pipes are the backing for a text written by Enya lyricist Roma Ryan that tells of Celtic civilisation voyaging into space in hope of a better future – a concept that sits in curious musical parallel to Afrofuturist techno group Drexciya’s vision of a Black nation living safe from persecution beneath the sea.Įnya in 1997. She’s not a solo artist, but actually a team, and producer Nicky Ryan’s roots were in sonic experimentation, such as designing a vibrating room so that deaf schoolchildren could sense music and dance. March of the Celts showcases the oddness of Enya’s music.
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Indeed, for years it seemed that its ubiquity obscured the stranger treasures in her discography.Īfter Enya left family band Clannad, her solo career struggled until she got a chance to soundtrack the 1987 BBC TV series The Celts. Visit for more information on the singer’s return.Ĭolleen Taylor writes the Music Notes column in the Irish Echo each week.With the plinking, clipped synths and infernally moreish chorus, Orinoco Flow is the Enya song that everyone knows, yet it is arguably the least interesting moment on her breakthrough album, Watermark. You can buy “Dark Sky Island” on Friday of next week and enjoy the preview of her single “So I Could Find My Way” on Spotify or watch the music video on Youtube. Enya provides a restorative historical sensibility in our growingly ephemeral culture.


The newly released single “So I Could Find My Way” is almost indecipherable from something like “Only Time.” It’s the same old melodious Enya, but one cannot deny the comfort that comes from having her back again. Her latest material is no exception-in fact, it’s the epitome of that historical characterization. Although it’s called “new age,” to me, everything in Enya’s voice and style sounds like history, even magic. Her latest travels around the globe inspired “Dark Sky Island,” yet the album consistently emits that faerie-like sense of Irish mythic mystery. She aims for a wide-reaching response, exemplified by her Afro-Caribbean influences and Irish musical roots alike. Emotional response from the listener represents the end-goal for Enya in everything she does, and it aligns with her music’s global nature.

That sense of choral harmony gets visual representation in Enya’s latest music video, where she stands in the center of a stage clad in striking red and surrounded by an all-female ensemble of singers and orchestra.ĭie-hard fans of the early Enya and especially her most famous song, “Orinoco Flow,” will be pleased with “Dark Sky Island.” She sees it as the companionate epilogue to “Orinoco Flow,” and explained the return to her original influences as a natural, cyclical progression.
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While creating “Dark Sky Island,” Enya put in full working days at the studio, using the recording technology to layer her voice-vocal arrangement upon vocal arrangement-hundreds of times to create that chorus-like, breathy, mystical sound that is the singer’s hallmark. After her break, she felt the pull back to the studio in 2012, when she began working on this latest album. The singer recently explained her comeback to the BBC.
