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kicks off, vocal waves wash over each other each reaching higher than the last in a fashion that sounds like a strange South American tribal choir. The sound structures are awesome, powerful, beautiful, spine tingling and otherworldly and when they have reached their highest peaks they drop away to be replaced by a subdued and haunting flute or a contrasting solo voice. It was after hearing this one song that I wanted to learn more about the music, not only was it totally original, there was something about the voices and language that that enthralled me. Upon doing some digging I found out that the Adiemus singers are Finish, the soloists British, and the backing music largely by a little known band called The London Philharmonic Orchestra. What surprised me more is the concept behind the lyrics, there are none! As Karl puts it "The text in Adiemus is written phonetically, with the words viewed as instrumental sound. The human voice is the oldest instrument and by removing the distraction of lyrics, we hope to create a sound that is universal and timeless." I must admit that I am a big fan of using the voice as an instrument and as I listen to a lot of Gaelic and world music the concept of not understanding the language is not a problem, here there is no language to understand. Its odd that I have heard from people the argument of "I couldn't listen to music where you can't understand the words" but then advocate bland dance music or misogynistic rap music which is saying nothing anyway.

Its impossible to separate one track from another here for reasons of description as the whole body of work seems to be created as a large piece rather that as individual "tunes". All have a lot in common, lush female vocal harmonies, sometimes en mass, sometimes sparse and gentle. The mix of cultural identity makes it a totally global product, East meets West and every compass point in between, some conforms to its original design of a European classic tradition, others are totally Amazonian in flavour, Arabesque solos sit along side Chinese back beats, Gregorian whispers flit through African celebration dances, Polynesian chants and even Strauss like waltz time signatures have their place. There is also a lot of pieces here that will already be well known to you, subliminally through TV adverts but also because the themes are so universally recognisable as cultural markers.

Although I found that not every thing on this album matches up to the brilliance of the original theme, it also acts as a good reference for which albums to buy. I seemed to find that as successive albums were made, the music tends to move slightly away from what it was that initially caught my attention in Jenkins work. I there fore now know that probably only the first two albums are suitable for me, but everyone will have their own favourites and this compilation is a good way of finding which ones to go for, especially if like me you managed to pick it up for next to nothing on e-bay. This is one of those albums that is good for the "me" time. That is; lounging in the bath, relaxing on the sofa after a hard day down the mine or just dropping off to sleep. I seem to be reviewing a lot of that sort of thing recently, must be getting old. And the last word from our main man, "To me, Adiemus transcends labels. That fact that it reaches people of different backgrounds, faiths and cultures gives it a universal appeal which is special. The compositions can be spiritual, religious, meditative - it's open to 'move' people in a way that they choose to experience."

Learn more about this author, Dave Franklin.
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