Exclusive: Enya Returns With Brand New Album

Hot Press has confirmed that Enya is set to release her new album Dark Sky Island on November 20, 2015. It is her first release since the Christmas album And Winter Came, which hit the shelves in November 2008.

Short preview clips of a couple of tracks have appeared as appetisers for the new record on Enya's website. However, until today, the release has been shrouded in secrecy. The album is produced by long-time collaborator and producer Nicky Ryan, with the lyrics written by Roma Ryan – continuing the narrative in which the Enya phenomenon is a three-person collaboration.

Enya is one of the biggest selling Irish artists of all time, with total album sales already topping the 75 million mark making her the country's biggest selling solo artist. Her music has been used successfully in films and television. In 2001, her ‘May It Be’ was featured in Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring and was nominated for both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. She has won four Grammmy Awards.

The Enya creative triumvirate – Enya, producer and sound engineer Nicky Ryan, and lyricist Roma Ryan – started work on the album in the spring of 2012. Inspired by Roma’s work on a series of poetry books themed around islands and specifically the island of Sark’s decision to be designated as a dark sky island, the album’s title track was the first song to be written for the collection.

"The album’s buoyantly optimistic first single ‘Echoes in Rain’ possesses an irresistible surge of globe-trotting euphoria which made it an obvious choice as the album’s lead track,” a statement confirmed. "While it shares the adventurous themes of Enya’s breakthrough hit ‘Orinoco Flow’, its rhythmic march instead celebrates the anticipation of a journey’s end."

‘Echoes in Rain’ also shares another coincide with its famous predecessor. Back in 1988, ‘Orinoco Flow’ was the final song that was recorded during sessions for the ‘Watermark’ album and it went on to become a huge global success. This time around, ‘Echoes in Rain’ was the final track to be completed for the album and has also been chosen as the lead single.

“This album has a theme of journeys,” states Enya. “Journeys to the island; through the length of a lifetime; through history, through emotions; and journeys across great oceans. So although it’s not a ‘themed’ album, as such, we nevertheless have an underlying connection between songs.”

The press release for the album is very detailed and highly informative.

"Sonically, Dark Sky Island is a collection that’s both incredibly diverse and innately unified by the production: almost Spector-esque in its lavish, wide-screen multi-tracked layers of sound.

"Opening track ‘The Humming’ is an immediate highlight as it subliminally works its infectious magic within the course of a single listen. By contrast, ‘Even In The Shadows’ pulses with an insistent rhythm; the hymnal ‘I Could Never Say Goodbye’ is sparse in its reflective beauty; while ‘Sancta Maria’ blends synthesisers and classical instrumentation to create an ethereal soundscape that comfortably sits in both the past and the future. It’s almost a history of sound encapsulated in four hypnotic and otherworldly minutes.

"That concept can be demonstrated in ‘The Humming’, a song that muses on the cycle of the universe and how change affects everything. Such intergalactic exploration also extends to ‘The Forge of the Angels’ and ‘The Loxian Gates’ which continue the use of the Loxian language that Romacreated and popularised with three songs from 2005’s ‘Amarantine’. It’s a futuristic narrative with a genesis that dates back to 1986 and Enya’s debut album / soundtrack to the BBC documentary The Celts.

‘Dark Sky Island’ is available to pre-order on CD and digital download formats, with ‘Echoes in Rain’ provided as an instant 'grat track' for fans.

"For this triumvirate of partners and friends, the journey marches on,” the release concludes. "With ‘Dark Sky Island’ and beyond, who knows what further expeditions lay unpredicted just over the horizon?"

The full ‘Dark Sky Island’ tracklisting is:

1. The Humming
2. So I Could Find My Way
3. Even in the Shadows
4. The Forge of the Angels
5. Echoes in Rain
6. I Could Never Say Goodbye
7. Dark Sky Island
8. Sancta Maria
9. Astra et Luna
10. The Loxian Gates
11. Diamonds on the Water