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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. 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. (Dark Sky Island - release: 11/20/15)



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Enya

It is one of the most extraordinary stories in contemporary music. Very few people would have seen the potential fully, when a young slip of a girl from Donegal, on the remote north western tip of Ireland, by the name of Eithne Ní Bhraonáin, first hooked up with Nicky Ryan and his partner Roma Ryan.It was the tail end of the 1970s and by then Nicky was a well established sound engineer and producer, having worked his aural magic on a plethora of Irish albums, among them records by the band that he and Roma had managed together, trading under the name of Clannad (a gaelic word meaning family). Eithne – pronounced Enya – had been a member of that group for what amounted to the blink of an eye, slipping briefly in alongside her siblings to play keyboards. It didn’t last and so when the chips were down, and it was time for everyone involved to pledge their long term allegiance, Enya, Nicky and Roma decided to pursue a dream together.To those on the outside it might have seemed like a strange and unlikely allegiance. But to look at it that way was to seriously underestimate Nicky Ryan’s musical vision and integrity, as well as Enya’s talent. He had worked with some of the finest Irish musicians of the era, including the seminal Planxty. His knowledge of contemporary music stretched into rock on the one side and the more experimantal branches of contemporary folk on the other. He had developed a mastery of the craft of recording, and planned to build a studio in the back garden of the house that he and Roma shared in the low key suburb of Artane on the North side of the city, where he could put his command of the speakers and the faders to even more productive use. All that was in his head when Enya arrived in Dublin, bristling with talent. When the call had to be made as to how to go forward, he and Roma – a visual artist by background and a powerful ally always in making the tough decisions – joined forces with Enya. They were in this together. They would be partners for the long haul, with the studio as their base.She was already an accomplished, clasically trained player, but Enya took advanced piano lessons to further develop her skills. Things moved slowly, perilously so, and there were lean years when it was hard to keep the wolf from the door. She taught piano on the side. Collectively, they battened down the hatches. Enclosed in their private world in the studio in Artane, Enya worked on composing, and Nicky weaved his sonic spell. They felt they were getting somewhere but things were tough in the music industry generally and even tougher in Ireland, where, as the 1980s progressed, the level of unemployment was reaching record levels. It needed patience. As it turned out the triumvirate had that in abundance.Enya wrote a couple of instrumentals for a local compilation record. Instinctively, Roma felt they had a cinematic appeal: listening to them her imagination ran free and the images flowe



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