I loved both Adiemus and Enya when I was a distinctly non-edgy ’90s teen, and the whole “these lyrics are not in any language but they follow language rules, to an extent” piece captivated my brain. (Also, I could study while I listened to Adiemus, because I didn’t get distracted by lyrics.)

But Adiemus the music project is way more than Adiemus the song, right? Each album takes a specific musical tradition and translates it through the Adiemus conlang: Adiemus is Gregorian chant and church Latin, Dances of Time uses dance forms from a variety of cultures, The Eternal Knot is Celtic, etc.

Which doesn’t make the “how can we make this world music… um… childlike harmonies?” thing any better.

For the record I thought the whole thing sounded like Legend of Zelda (esp. Ocarina of Time), and if we want to get into a conversation about how video games borrowed musical forms from existing cultures to create their fantasy world soundtracks, I am THERE FOR THAT.