Adiemus is the creation of three veteran musicians: composer
Karl Jenkins,
Mike Ratledge (like
Jenkins a former member of
Soft Machine) as arranger of programmed percussion, and vocalist
Miriam Stockley. They also enlist the talents of
the London Philharmonic, which helps to balance out the huge sound created by all the layers of
Stockley's voice and the additional vocals by
Mary Carewe. The concept of the album was to create modern music using classical forms, such as rondo and ternary, and not individual songs. To further the universal aspect of the music, all the vocals are written as vowel and consonants sounds. The voice here is used as simply another instrument with which to make music and not to convey a lyric message. The result is a powerful wall of sound: a full orchestra and a giant choir created by multiple harmony tracks of
Stockley and
Carewe. The concept may be classical form, but the music contained within those strict forms is a mix of African-tribal and Celtic-style melodies. The resulting hybrid sounds like the musical love child of
Enya and
Ladysmith Black Mambazo. ~ Susan Cruickshank
![Platinum Collection [Special Edition]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/mimages/0000000000000_p0_v0_s192x300.jpg "Platinum Collection [Special Edition]")
