Song Swap: Kayama by Karl Jenkins
My brother, Matt, and I decided to explore our fairly different musical tastes and do a song swap. What follows is my reaction to a song of his choice from his collection.
Go check out Matt’s reaction to Lilac Wine by Jeff Buckley.
Song: Kayama
Artists: Karl Jenkins, Adiemus, et al
Album: Adiemus
https://song.link/i/1447107151
This track exudes 90s new age, which makes sense as it was released in 1995. I can get down with a bit of Enya or Enigma so there were things about this I liked even if it isn’t my normal jam. I like vocal harmonies. The harmonies in this track sounded tribal in nature which is kind of cool.
The language is made up which is another interesting aspect as it makes me think of the song from the movie Gladiator, Now We Are Free, which I discovered, years after seeing the film, used an invented language of sorts.
The whole thing had a cinematic feel and a gradual build-up that I liked. I thought the beginning and middle were kind of same-y or went on too long. But at some point midway a cool sounding flute joined in and the following build-up of strings and other instruments was kind of neat.
It has a pretty long runtime of 7:56. Apparently this is the non-radio-edit version. Matt said he gave me this one instead because it had more of the flute. Fair enough.
Would you listen to it again?
I kind of enjoyed it as a novelty but I can’t say I will be adding this to any playlists or seeking it out again. I could see looking for various other “invented language” music to listen to while working since sometimes lyrics can be distracting to me.