Enya - Enya - 1986 (24/96 Vinyl Rip)

"Enya" (later re-released as The Celts) is a soundtrack album by Irish singer Enya, released in 1986, accompanying the BBC documentary The Celts.

This music, produced in the mid-'80s as the soundtrack to a BBC series, was released as her debut in 1987 and promptly ignored–yet its mix of atmospheric soundscapes and Enya's lush, layered vocals, sung in both English and Gaelic, is the template for her subsequent global hits, beginning with "Watermark" the following year. "This album has some (very incidental) "vinyl noise" on Side 2; enjoy her really first debut-album with great tracks"!

Note > No silence was deleted; please burn this album gapless..

Review:

For fans who were enthusiastic with Enya's Watermark (1988), it was tough to find more of her material. The only other album available at the time, and difficult to locate, was her debut titled simply Enya (1986) on the Atlantic label. Although I prefer the black and white cover art of the original release, The Celts is a Reprise re-release of Enya's debut. The album is a score for a BBC-TV series titled The Celts. With that in mind, most of the material here is suitable as "background" music for a soundtrack: delicate, melodic and unobtrusive so as not to distract from the television program, but to add an aural dimension.

As background music, The Celts is serene and soothing. Despite its overall tranquil quality, several tracks are dynamic and immediately memorable. The opening track, `The Celts', has a gorgeous melody which is repeated several times throughout the album giving it continuity. `I Want Tomorrow' features a dark and foreboding string arrangement over Enya's alluring and melodic vocals. The recording of Enya's voice is unusual: it sounds as though it is 100 miles away giving the song (and others) a detached and ethereal quality. The appeal of The Celts, and Enya's other work, is not her synthesized New Age savvy, but the incorporation of Celtic influences.

One might categorize The Celts as an Ethnic Alternative to New Age. Several compositions are sung in Gaelic (Deireadh an Tuath, Triad, Dan y Dwr), a beautiful language for music and especially enticing when presented by such a gifted singer as Enya. Overall, The Celts lacks the energy and dynamics of Watermark, but it is melodic, dreamlike and enchanting.

Dev1@amazon.com


Tracklist

01 The Celts
02 Aldeberan
03 I Want Tomorrow
04 March of the Celts
05 Deireadh an Tuath
06 The Sun in the Stream
07 To Go Beyond, Pt. 1

08 Fairytale
09 Epona
10 Triad: St. Patrick/Cú Chulainn/Oisin
11 Portrait (Out of the Blue)
12 Boadicea
13 Bard Dance
14 Dan y Dwr
15 To Go Beyond, Pt. 2