Speaking of Both Music And The Spoken Word...

Well, yet another birthday has gone into the scrapbook, and, as always, my loving (but increasingly absent) wife gave me several wonderful presents. As always, she included at least one CD, in this case Enya's new album, Amarantine. It is certainly interesting.



Not that Enya's music has changed a whole lot. Sure, her musical style has gone through stages over the past two decades. Her first album, originally titled simply Enya but now known as The Celts, was a spacey dreamscape. This was followed by her breakthrough album, the very sentimental, classical Watermark. After that, she took a decidedly romantic turn with the almost too sweetly melodic Shepherd Moon. Memory of Trees seemed bolder and more passionate, with some very strong melodies that still tend to pop up as BGM for TV commercials. The next one after that, A Day Without Rain, seemed like a sort of recap of all her past themes compiled together under one roof. And then, after that, she scored a solid hit with the tunes that she did for the Lord of the Rings movies, particularly the first one. Yes, Enya's music has gone through different turns, but it has always remained unmistakably Enya. Her sound is still very much her sound, as it always has been, and it is immediately recognizable.

So, what's the take on Amarantine? Well, it's still very obviously Enya, but she seems to have taken a turn for the spacey dreamscapes again. The reason I say that is not just the music, either. The lyrics this time around represent a radical change for her. From her first album, she always sang in either English, Latin, or her native Irish. This time there is no Latin and, surprisingly, no Irish, either. Most of the songs are in English. However, one is in Japanese. There are also three that are in...

...Loxian?

Loxian is an alien language apparently invented by Enya's longtime working partner and lyricist, Roma Ryan. The CD insert gives the lyrics of the three Loxian songs in the "native" script plus English translations. No other explanation is given except that Roma Ryan created the language for a book she recently published called "Water Shows the Hidden Heart" (also the title of one of the songs on the album). The songs are beautiful, but it is definitely a radical departure for the hitherto intransigent Enya.

So why did she do it? Well, she says that English, Irish, and Latin are "too cumbersome" and therefore not much fun to sing in. Loxian, on the other hand, was designed from the start to have a lyrical, euphonic quality to facilitate singing. I can't really say that it's strange to sing in invented, alien tongues since, in my home recordings, I have sung in Ehrkiss, Hr'Gal'ad, Fas Standard, and Soeki, all languages that I came up with for my various writings and RPG set in my so-called Impasse universe. (If you don't know what that's about, it's probably best to forget it.) However, something like that seems a bit out of place for someone like Enya, so I have to wonder whether her true motive is to compete with another recently very popular artist in the same genre, Adiemus.



For those of you not familiar with Adiemus, it is actually a project conceived and produced by composer Karl Jenkins. It has been getting a lot of airplay recently, especially on the TV as BGM for news programs and commercials. The music is basically classical with ethnic and electronic influences. However, its most readily identifiable feature is its prominent vocals, which feature singer Miriam Stockley and sometimes other female artists singing in what was called "invented language" on the first few albums and "expanded phonetics" after that. In other words, the lyrics are gibberish pieced together out of phonetic sounds taken from various world languages. The music is quite good, and it's generally quite enjoyable to listen to, but I often feel the obvious, total meaninglessness of the singing lessens the effect somewhat.

I mean, even when Enya sang in Irish, which I don't understand, it still felt like she understood, and that gave the music more impact. I don't get that sense with Adiemus at all. And now, even though Roma Ryan has clearly made an impressive and very serious effort with her "Loxian" language, it still doesn't seem like Enya really feels the words she's singing. She's just making sounds, like Adiemus does. Don't think that I'm criticizing the music at all; as I said, this is some real quality stuff, and I know I will be listening to it a lot. However, at this time of writing, I'm not thoroughly convinced of the artistic approach. Time is probably exactly what is needed for me to appreciate it fully.

If you like "new age" (I prefer to call it "eclectic") or classical music, you ought to check out Amarantine. If you're not familiar with Adiemus or with Enya's other works, I'd recommend looking into those, as well. Your take may be very different from mine.