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Enya: Dark Sky Island

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Aigle Music
Released: 2015.11.20
Time:
 54:36
Category: New Age, Celtic
Producer(s): Nicky Ryan
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.enya.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2015
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] The Humming... (R.Ryan/Enya) - 3:42
[2] So I Could Find My Way (R.Ryan/Enya) - 4:25
[3] Even in the Shadows (R.Ryan/Enya) - 4:13
[4] The Forge of the Angels (R.Ryan/Enya) - 5:12
[5] Echoes in Rain (R.Ryan/Enya) - 3:33
[6] I Could Never Say Goodbye (R.Ryan/Enya) - 3:28
[7] Dark Sky Island (R.Ryan/Enya) - 4:56
[8] Sancta Maria (R.Ryan/Enya) - 3:50
[9] Astra et Luna (R.Ryan/Enya) - 3:20
[10] The Loxian Gates (R.Ryan/Enya) - 3:33
[11] Diamonds on the Water (R.Ryan/Enya) - 3:33
          Deluxe edition bonus tracks:
[12] Solace (R.Ryan/Enya) - 3:56
[13] Pale Grass Blue (R.Ryan/Enya) - 3:33
[14] Remember Your Smile (R.Ryan/Enya) - 2:57

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Enya – Vocals, Instrumentation, Mixer

Eddie Lee – Double Bass on [3]

Roma Ryan – Lyrics, Loxian Language, Font, Producer
Nicky Ryan – Arrangement, Engineer, Mixer, Album Sleeve Conception
Dick Beetham – Mastering at 360 Mastering In Hastings
Daniel Polley – Digital Advisor, Technician
Simon Fowler – Album Sleeve Conception, Photography
Richard Welland – Booklet Layout
Michael Whitham – Commissioner

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Recorded in 2012–2015 at the Aigle Studios, Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin, Ireland.



Since the late '80s, Irish singer/composer Enya has become the most unlikely of international stars, delivering lush, Celtic-driven pseudo-classical odes in her signature Wall of Sound vocal style, rarely granting interviews, never touring, and generally taking as much time as she wishes between albums. Bucking odds and industry trends, her popularity has remained steadfast, allowing her to become the best-selling Irish solo artist of all time. Following 2008's snowbound And Winter Came, her silence stretched to eight years -- the longest of her career -- before the mists once again parted to reveal her eighth album, the evocatively titled Dark Sky Island. Named for Sark, the smallest of Britain's Channel Islands and first in the world receive the Dark Sky designation for its lack of light pollution, it has all the thematic and sonic hallmarks typical of an Enya release but with significantly more highlights than on her two prior works. Since the release of her 1986 debut, changes in her overall approach have been subtle and critics have often derided her for her unwavering dedication to dated, late-'80s synth patches and her reliance on formulaic methods, but Enya's consistency is actually one of her greatest assets. Her low public profile -- especially in the age of social media -- demands that her music remains the sole focus, and even if she and collaborators Roma and Nicky Ryan choose to keep working within their unique, self-designed milieu, it's one that they own completely and have nurtured over the years. Opening track "The Humming," with its eerie staccato swing and mystical musings on the cycles of the universe, is one of the strongest tracks she's produced in decades and resembles a dark cousin to 1991's masterwork "Caribbean Blue." Inspired lead single "Echoes of Rain" also harkens back to her Shepherd Moons heyday and features some fine, cascading piano work amid the pulsing strings and exalted vocal layers. Dark Sky Island also marks the return of Loxian, a language lyricist Roma Ryan first created for Enya on 2005's Amarantine and which is used here on the lavish march "The Forge of Angels" and the powerful "The Loxian Gate," which again echoes early Watermark-era standouts like "Storms in Africa" and "The Longships." While it would be unfair to call Dark Sky Island a throwback, it does manage to harness some of the power and creativity of Enya's early days and pairs it with both the confidence and shadows of age.

Timothy Monger - All Music Guide



Never given the credit for being the maverick pioneers they were, the threesome who craft Enya’s records – Enya Brennan herself, plus husband and wife lyricist Roma Ryan and producer Nicky – sold a jaw dropping 75 million records and played precisely zero concerts.

Now, a mere seven years since the Christmas(ish) album And Winter Came… comes Dark Sky Island and it’s Enya in excelsis: more of the same, but somehow bigger, brighter and even more detailed than before.

Stripped down, The Humming, The Forge Of The Angels and the rest, would be pretty pop songs, but with a production vision every bit as inspired as Phil Spector’s, these songs built up with layer upon layer of vocals (some in Roma Ryan’s invented language, Loxian), layer upon layer of instrumentation and layer upon layer of luxurious, uplifting, undeniably spiritual warmth.

Magnificent, in every sense.

John Aizlewood - 20 November 2015
London Evening Standard



It’s remarkable how Enya exists outside of time.

From her self-titled 1986 debut through to her latest studio album, Dark Sky Island, the Irish vocalist’s first new work in almost a decade, the songs she sings — often in English, occasionally in Gaelic, Latin or Japanese and, as she did on 2005’s Amarantine, in the entirely fictional language of Loxian — feel a part of right now and a hundred years ago.

That timeless sensation is intensified by Enya, her quicksilver soprano layered to the moon, singing of elemental things — the ocean, the sky, the stars, the human heart — which proves both pleasurable and mildly problematic.

After all, if there is an illusion of constancy, is she basically making the same music over and over again?

Enya’s critics would say yes, even in the face of some staggering statistics: 80 million units sold globally, to date, making the 54-year-old four-time Grammy winner one of the world’s most popular singers, albeit one who effectively exists only on record. (Enya has never toured extensively, limiting her promotional appearances mostly to music videos.)

And it’s that feeling of history repeating that makes it difficult to fall completely for the lush, 11-track Island.

Again teamed with husband-wife duo Nicky and Roma Ryan, Enya unfurls one lavish, exquisitely rendered sonic tapestry after another: the stately, poignant So I Could Find My Way; the surging lead single Echoes in Rain; the exotic waltz Sancta Maria; and the luminous finale, Diamonds in the Water.

While Dark Sky Island is, for every one of its 44 minutes, unquestionably alluring, it’s tough to shake the ghosts of successes past.

Echoes in Rain strongly recalls her breakout hit. Orinoco Flow, spliced with her On My Way Home, nearly to the point of distraction. Astra et Luna, while gorgeous, feels like an outtake from her Shepherd Moons album.

So on and so forth — Enya can summon vocal beauty like no other pop vocalist (as she explained to Entertainment Weekly recently, she doesn’t see herself as a New Age artist: “That’s more electronic recorded music, and we’re more real-time.”) but, as most other pop acts have discovered at some point during their careers, it becomes especially challenging to give listeners something fresh, particularly as the weight of time’s passing becomes more pronounced.

Preston Jones - Star-Telegram.com



Since her 1987 debut, Ireland’s enigmatic new-age megastar Enya has shifted 80m albums of gently bubbling, multilayered ethereal pop. Needless to say, her ninth album, and first for seven years, doesn’t exactly mess with the tried and tested formula, offering up 11 variations on the sweepingly dramatic. There’s genuine beauty nestled among the perpetually unfashionable folky arrangements, not least on the delicately sighing So I Could Find My Way and the relatively robust Even In The Shadows. In fact, the first half is full of pockets of gently unfurling prettiness, which makes the meandering and repetitive second half all the more disappointing, the nadir being The Loxian Gate’s wordless nonsense. Overall though, this is a surprisingly enjoyable trip to another world.

Michael Cragg - Sunday 22 November
© 2015 Guardian News and Media



Dark Sky Island is the eighth studio album from the Irish musician Enya, released on 20 November 2015 on Aigle Music. Following the release of And Winter Came... (2008), Enya took an extended break from writing and recording. She returned to the studio in 2012 to record Dark Sky Island with her long-time lyricist Roma Ryan and producer Nicky Ryan. Enya performs all the vocals and instruments on the album, apart from Eddie Lee who plays the double bass on "Even in the Shadows".

Dark Sky Island received a mostly positive reception from critics. It peaked at No. 4 in the UK, Enya's highest charting album there since Shepherd Moons (1991), No. 8 in the US, and within the top ten in thirteen countries worldwide. A Deluxe Edition includes three extra tracks, and an LP edition was released on 18 December 2015; Enya's first LP since the 1992 reissue of her debut album, Enya (1987).

Following the release of And Winter Came... (2008), Enya took an extended break from writing and recording and spent time away from Ireland to travel and purchase a home in the south of France. Aigle Studios, her usual recording studio in Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin in Ireland, was also renovated in 2011 which delayed plans to resume work on a new studio album.

In 2012, Enya returned to the studio to record Dark Sky Island, her eighth overall, with her long-time lyricist Roma Ryan and producer Nicky Ryan. The album's title was inspired by the designation of the island of Sark as the world's first "dark sky island" and a series of poetry books on islands from Roma Ryan. The album's title track was the first song to be written for the album. Enya described the album as having a "theme of journeys" but is not a concept album like the winter-themed And Winter Came... was. She spoke of the album: "journeys to the island; through a length of a lifetime; throughout history; throughout emotions; and through journeys across great oceans".

"The Humming..." is a song "that muses on the cycle of the universe and how change affects everything". According to Nicky Ryan, the track originated as a short melody that Enya began to hum. He added, "The title refers to the sound of the early universe which is at around forty-seven octaves below the lowest piano key". Nicky revealed that scientific work on compression and pitching the vibration to be audible to humans, "picked up by the Planck space telescope", turned the sound into a humming, giving the song a fitting title. "So I Could Find My Way" is set in waltz time and composed in the key of D major. Enya described the melody as "very emotional". The song is dedicated to Nicky Ryan's deceased mother Mona and its subject of "a mother moving on" is "something quite universal ... You think about what she left behind in your life. That's what you'll always remember. What her stories were, what she was hoping for you; hoping you'd find your way". "Even in the Shadows" features a double bass played by Irish rock and jazz musician Eddie Lee. Lee is a member of Those Nervous Animals from Sligo, Ireland who were label mates, under the Tara Music label, of the Brennan family band Clannad in the early 1980s; Enya was a member of Clannad from 1980 to 1982.

There are two songs in the album that featuring lyrics in Loxian, a language created by Roma Ryan, for the first time since Amarantine (2005). These songs in particular focus on the "intergalactic theme" and otherworldly and futuristic tales Roma Ryan uses Loxian for, along with the non-Loxian "Astra et Luna". "Echoes In Rain" is in a minor scale, specifically F-sharp minor, and has a "marching rhythm celebrating a journey's end". The song includes a piano-based bridge, similar to Enya's solo piano tracks on her earlier albums. Enya's vocals span two octaves from B2 to E5. The lyrics describe the feelings of a long journey home, travelling through night and through day, with the verses detailing how the surroundings and emotions change throughout the journey. "I Could Never Say Goodbye" is a Irish lament with "a sparse, hymnal arrangement". "Sancta Maria" blends synthesizers and classical instrumentation.

Dark Sky Island was released on CD and as a digital download on 20 November 2015. It was released on LP on 18 December 2015. Two promotional singles from the album were released. "So I Could Find My Way" was released digitally on 30 October 2015. Its music video, released on 6 November, features Enya performing in the Chapel Royal Church in Dublin with a female string ensemble and choir. "The Humming..." was released digitally on 13 November with an accompanying lyric video released the same day. Dark Sky Island entered the UK Albums Chart at No. 4, Enya's highest charting album there since Shepherd Moons (1991).

Dark Sky Island received a mostly positive reception from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 78, which indicates "generally favorable reviews", based on 8 reviews. In his review for AllMusic, Timothy Monger rated the album four stars out of five. He wrote the album "has all the thematic and sonic hallmarks typical of an Enya release but with significantly more highlights than on her two prior works" and highlights "The Humming" as "one of the strongest tracks she's produced in decades and resembles a dark cousin to 1991's masterwork 'Caribbean Blue'". He summarised the album "does manage to harness some of the power and creativity of Enya's early days and pairs it with both the confidence and shadows of age". In the Evening Standard, John Aizlewood gives the album the same rating, summarising with "magnificent in every sense" with "songs built up with layer upon layer of vocals ... layer upon layer of instrumentation and layer upon layer of luxurious, uplifting, undeniably spiritual warmth".

Siobhan Kane of The Irish Times rated the album four stars out of five, praising Enya's vocal power "that manages to be both frail and strong" on "So I Could Find My Way", and summarised the album as "nourishing and immersive". Brad Nelson in his review for Pitchfork, likened the album to "being embraced by air" and said with "some confidence" that Dark Sky Island was Enya's best album since The Memory of Trees (1995), released almost twenty years prior; he gave a positive review and score of 7.1 out of 10. He praised Enya for "drifting somewhat from her aesthetic" and highlighted "Even in the Shadows" as a prime example and consequently called it "one of the best on the album".

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