This is off Enya’s Watermark album, which sold a zillion copies and put Orinoco Flow on a few people’s can-never-hear again list because every radio in the freaking world played it all the time in 1988-89. Even if you’re one of those, there are lots of other things on this record to like, and this one I like especially.
Now, Enya would never ever let a rough edge or a raw tone creep into her creations, and the artifacts on her recordings could never ever be performed live because they are the result of prodigious over-tracking and other studio wizardry; although perhaps one should say witchery?
You may like this record but unless you’re an audiophile with speakers that can get down below 30Hz, you’ve never actually heard it properly. You’ll notice a big bass-drum that punctuates the song, and it is superbly recorded. There are relatively few speakers in the world that can really come close to that drum, and you know, it’s a perfectly fine song even on ordinary songs. But if you ever happen to be in the company of speakers that can do the trick, see if you can cue up The Longships; the huge soft thunder of the drumbeats complete the song in a way I lack words to describe.
This is part of the Song of the Day series (background).
Links · Spotify playlist. This tune on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon. There’s no live video; no great loss for reasons covered above.
