The overall result is something extremely vast-sounding, and sounds like the equivalent of a large rainy Irish field in the springtime. Imagine a mix of new age, folk, and pop the folk is on the Celtic side (reflecting her Irish origin), and there can be hundreds of vocal overdubs at a time. However, Enya's captured a very certain vibe over the course of her career, one that I feel has never been replicated. For instance, Devin Townsend's 2011 album Ghost (which happens to be his only album with a new age sound) could easily be used for a quiet night at the beach or there's Yanni, whose music is more classical in nature and can depict a sense of sorrow or the return of autumn. Even more impressive is how certain artists can create an atmosphere for certain seasons or even weather conditions. For many (myself included), music like this is best experienced outside as a background experience, sort of like a soundtrack to daily life depending on the person's mood. Whether you're a fan of new age or not, many of the artists involved should at least be given kudos for creating unique musical environments with their works. But Enya’s starry spell still works.Review Summary: A beautiful album primarily marred by predictability. That said, I put the album on last night, lit a few candles and took an hour off from worrying about the state of the world while my children sat at the table, drawing steadily and quietly. Newsom’s fingers flutter over the strings of a real harp instead of plodding over the keys of an Eighties synth set to “harp effect”.Įnya’s metronomic beats get soporific – one song is called The Humming and as Enya runs out of words and hums along you fear she might nod off herself. Adele, 25, album review: 'pop doesn't come more perfect than this'īut in an age when artists like Joanna Newsom are crafting more dexterous and detailed dreamscapes, there’s something rather plinky-plonky about Enya.Roma’s lyrics are all vague, yearning fantasies of celestial seas and prophesy, designed for consumption in centrally heated and wall‑to-wall carpeted rooms. The melodies are lovely, if conservative: as elegant and classically tailored as her gowns. She’s still working with producer Nicky Ryan and his wife, lyricist Roma, to waft the listener into a misty realm of ethereal romance. There’s been no change of formula in 20 years. When your cool friends came over, etiquette required you to slip the cassette under a ring binder and never admit to weeping over the sentimental piano ballad Miss Clare Remembers. The dramatic key changes and pulsing beats kept you awake but the impressionistic lyrics demanded no attention. Enya’s gentle, dreamy voice soothed away the rising panic while her classical style and crisp pronunciation encouraged the mind to aspire. It worked like a kind of aural aromatherapy. She’s still best known for the song Orinoco Flow from her 1988 album Watermark, which my friends and I came to know in our teens as “The Revision Album”. Distant, mysterious, cold and comforting all at once, they’re a perfect match for the multilayered, New Age electronica she’s been making since the mid-Eighties, selling more than 80 million albums around the world and winning four Grammy awards. The stars are an old theme for the 54-year-old Irish singer-songwriter. Guess the song lyric: Adele, David Bowie or Enya?.Seven years in the making, Enya’s eighth album was inspired by Sark: the tiny island just 80 miles off the South Coast where cars are banned and a total lack of public street lighting make conditions perfect for stargazing.Īlthough I can’t quite picture Eithne Ní Bhraonáin (generally photographed in trailing, velvet ball gowns) spending her nights in the island’s shed-like observatory, it’s easy to imagine her gazing upwards through the double glazing of some lonely penthouse as she sighs out the names of stars and constellations over a familiar sea of synths: “Capella, Auriga, Eta Carinae, Sagitta.”
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