S e l k i e R e f l e c t i o n s A l l i y a h E n y o X A n g e l R
Press Release -
“In 2022, Enyo worked with the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop on an epic two-hour composition made from tape loops inspired by selkies, mythical creatures in Celtic folklore. Contemplating memory, grief and time itself, Enyo devised a "sonorous myth" installation and performance that drowned her voice in the deep sea, using echo to help parallel the communication of humpback whales. It was powerful enough for her to net the award for Sonic Arts at the Scottish Awards for New Music last year, and it's this material that she revisits here, entering into a dialog with Berlin-based producer Florian T M Zeisig, here adopting a new avatar - Angel R.
On the A-side, Enyo distills two hours of the original composition into 11 haunted fragments that ooze in and out of each other like a dream. Reworked at Glasgow's Green Door studio, she sculpts her voice into weightless Radigue-style incantations, leaning into the tape loops' corroded inconsistencies. Enyo's voice becomes the selkie's song: wordless echoes that sound as if they're being dragged slowly towards the sea bed. There are remnants of folk forms in there; we hear traces of church music and Celtic ballads - but she obscures her influences with dubbed reverb, distortion and repetition. Phrases disappear and re-appear, time becomes a loop, best absorbed in a single sitting to properly perceive its graceful, sinking bliss. By the end of the side, Enyo’s vocals are completely waterlogged, dimmed against Robin Guthrie-like shimmers, all brassy, blurred incantations emanating from the depths of a floatation tank.
Florian T M Zeisig responds on the B-side with three flooded, longer-form pieces that will appeal to anyone who devoured his album of corroded Enya loops a couple of years ago. Enyo's voice is now reduced to a whisper, blistered and gauzy expressions that float over dense pads on 'Untitled I' before getting lost in the weeds completely on the muggy 'Untitled II'. On the closing 'Gates of Heaven', he sculpts Enyo's voice until it's just an illusory, hypnotic reflection, slow-fading into the aether.”
M y s t i c e t i / M h a i g h d e a n M h a r a A l l i y a h E n y o X A n g e l R X B a p t i s t G o t h
Press Release -
“In the smoky wake of Alliyah Enyo’s recent LP with Florian TM Zeisig (Kelela, NUG, Alva Noto), she now casts adrift in an enchanting siren-call featuring a collab on one side with Dylan Kerr, and again with Florian on the flip. Gorgeous, immersive works for voice, reverb, and seemingly endless layers of atmosphere.
An addendum and expansion of sorts to themes explored on the recent ‘Selkie Reflections’, album, Enyo here places that work in a more raw context with an uncanny ethereality. Her vocal performance is startling, arcing from breathy gasps to choral longing and a sort of swirling gregorian chanting that casts spirits in more ambiguous directions.
The A-side’s ‘Mysticeti’ pitches Alliyah in her Baptist Goth duo with Dylan Kerr, whose solo work has been issued by 3XL. Performing facing each other, illuminated with a single beam of light, they project a spellbinding helix of smoke curl glossolalia, layering wordless drones with throat singing and overtones in a sort of transfixing, keening lament.
Rejoining Florian TM Zeisig, ‘Mhaigdean Mhara’ on the b side is a more blissed version of the brief, with Alliyah’s voice a distanced presence within the fathomless reverberations of Florian’s E-bowed bass guitar drones, setting the vocals siren-like, seductively calling from a wide-open, ominously calm-but-deep oceanic space.”
~ i d r e a m w i d e a w a k e ~
Press Release -
“Alliyah sings to her dreams in darkness~ midnight by the ocean and shrouded in rainfall, her words cloaked as if summoning a lover. Harnessing traditional styles of wailing song and contemporary r&b, Alliyah has created a multi-spacial, multi-layered work which threads elements of studio recordings and home-made tape loops mixed with live site recordings. This work takes the form of a seductive yet lullaby song in order to slowly reveal its true intention~ to summon prophetic dreams.
Alliyah's sound piece is currently installed in Southwark's stunning concrete church, Dilston Gallery London, as part of her Aphotic Archaeology installation for the Jerwood Survey III Award. Alliyah will be activating her installation June 20th, 2024 by performing an extended live version which encapsulates an ethereal story echoing a futuristic aphotic apocalypse and the strange creature that awakens. Objects and relics from within the installation become unearthed using movement and vocal scores creating a haunting landscape.”
lyrics
~ i dream wide awake ~ ~ eyes wide open ~ ~ i fall into a sleep ~ ~ deep enough to drown me ~
E c h o’ s D i s i n t e g r a t i o n
Press Release -
“Emerging from a live recording at St.Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in 2021, Alliyah Enyo’s ‘Echo’s Disintegration’ is a transformational project; a coded reflection on loss, metamorphosis and rebirth. It’s a work of two parts, each incarnation informed by the parameters of the recording environment. In the initial live performance, Alliyah harnesses the organic echo and reverb formed by the vast open space of the cathedral. Her luminous vocals break through a dense sea of layered noise, a reverberating wailing drenched in heartache.
Her words are fractured and frayed, broken into segments, and enshrouded in mysticism. Yet through the ambiguity, there’s an innate spirituality to the work; iridescent melodies are heightened by the imposing presence of the surroundings. The five studio tracks, made in retrospect, carry the live performance within the DNA of their reinterpreted sounds and loops. Recorded in Glasgow’s renowned Green Door Studio, constructed reel-to-reel tape loops further fragment and transform compositions, evoking the intoxicating tape feedback of Eliane Raidgue and the harrowing loops of William Basinski.
There’s a radiant clarity to the recordings, Alliyah’s voice implemented as the guiding instrument, the heady sensuality of her vocals layered and echoed in enchanting formation. Through the agony and longing, we reach reincarnation in the culminating euphoria of ‘the healer’. We’re left amongst the blissful reverberations of an awakened soul.”
