Enya

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Enya

Singer, Songwriter, Composer

After performing in the folk group Clannad and doing solo soundtrack work for a few years, Irish vocalist, composer, and musician Enya rushed up the British charts with the album Watermark in 1988. The following year she achieved success in the United States, most notably with her hit single “Orinoco Flow.” Enya’s sound combines the spiritual qualities of New Age music with traditional Celtic sounds in a way that ultimately “transcends the category of Celtic New Age,” asserted Helena Mulkerns in Rolling Stone. Enya was born Eithne Ni Bhraonain in Gweedore, County Donegal, Ireland, to a musical family in the early 1960s. Her first language, as well as her name, is Gaelic; Enya is an English spelling of the pronunciation of her first name. She and several of her eight siblings inherited their parents’ musical abilities and were involved in the Irish folk group, Clannad. In 1982 though, Enya left the group to find follow her own inspiration. To pursue this goal she traveled to Dublin, where she rented a room in the home of former Clannad manager Nicky Ryan. She struck up a working relationship with Ryan’s wife, Roma, who began providing Enya with lyrics for her compositions. Eventually, in 1985, Enya was contracted to score a film for David Puttnam entitled The Frog Prince. This opportunity led to her real breakthrough, recording the soundtrack of the BBC television series “The Celts.” Music from this project was released on the album Enya by Atlantic Records. Though critic Michael Tearson of Audio pointed out that Enya “is not as elaborate” as the artist’s later Watermark, he recommended it “as a fitting companion” to the more popular album.

When Watermark was released in Great Britain, the single “Orinoco Flow”—described variously as “a moody tale of traveling down Venezuela’s Orinoco River” in People, and as “genuinely upbeat” by Tearson—became England’s biggest seller during the autumn of 1988. When “Orinoco Flow” found its way to the United States the following year, it received a great deal of airplay on adult contemporary radio stations and thus became popular with American fans as well. As Lucy O’Brien noted in the New Statesman, some of the song’s success can be credited to “the ‘Orinoco Flow’ video, a video montage of nature, maritime and wildlife footage sealed with a high speed painted effect.” This creative effort was aired frequently on the video cable channel VH-1.

Enya’s style on Watermark has been favorably analyzed by many critics. One unusual feature of the album is the composer’s use of three different languages—English, Latin, and Gaelic. One Watermark track, “Cursum Perficio,” was labeled by O’Brien as a “hymn-like Latin … tribute to Marilyn Monroe.” And Mulkerns declared that “the ethnic touches throughout tend to enrich without dominating, as with the Gaelic lyrics on

For the Record…

Born Eithne (pronounced Enya) Ni Bhraonain c. 1962 in Gweedore, County Donegal, Ireland; daughter of musicians.

Member of folk group Clannad prior to 1982; composed score for film The Frog Prince, 1985; performed soundtrack of the BBC series The Celts; music has also been featured in the films Green Card and LA. Story; solo recording artist, c. 1986—.

Addresses: Record company—Geffen (UNI Distribution Corp.), 70 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, CA 91608.

… ‘Na Laetha Gael M’Oige.’” Though Enya uses English on “Storms in Africa” as well as on “Orinoco Flow,” O’Brien noted the engaging use of African hand drums and the “muted percussive threat” of the former cut.

Reviewers seem to agree that Watermark’s best effects come from the use of Enya’s remarkable voice on many different tracks of particular songs. As Mulkerns reported, Enya’s manager and producer Nicky Ryan “overdubbed up to 100 voice tracks to create a chorus of Latin-chanting Enyas” on “Cursum Perficio.” Tearson asserted that by overdubbing on songs like “Orinoco Flow,” and “The Longships” the artist “creates vast aural sweeps that are at once astonishing and lovely.” One critic who was not so keen on the overdubbing, Tish Hamilton of Seventeen, nonetheless praised Enya’s singing abilities, rejoicing that in “On Your Shore,” her “pure, bell-tone voice is … unencumbered by layered production.” Tearson concluded that “the ethereal beauty” of Enya’s “sounds” raise Watermark “way beyond most so-called New Age music. It makes the difference between background and foreground music.”

Selected discography

Enya (includes music from “The Celts”), Atlantic, c. 1986.

Watermark (includes “Orinoco Flow,” “Cursum Perficio,” “The Longships,” “On Your Shore,” “Na Laetha Gael M’Oige,” and “Storms in Africa”), Geffen, 1989.