Artist: Enigma
Label: Virgin Records
Release: 2008
Michael Cretu and his Enigma have been on the scene for ages. Who doesn’t remember his Gregorian chant touches and his singer and longtime companion Sandra? The annals of pop music also hold hits like Mea Culpa, Return To Innocence, and there’d be plenty more to name
No matter what anyone thinks of Enigma, Michael Cretu is a hugely influential musician, and he’s stretched his tentacles all the way to a name like Mike Oldfield, who’s himself known as a role model for plenty of other artists. Personally, I don’t rate Enigma all that much in this style (nor Mike Oldfield’s electronic projects, where Enigma’s influence shows to a degree). In electronic music, a lot more interesting stuff was going on in the underground, and there were plenty of artists who knew how to blend genres better than Cretu and Oldfield, but Enigma just became a famous name.
Nothing earth-shattering happens on the album. Typical electronic rhythms combined with a bit more classical than before this time, and plenty of music from all over the world again, so-called “world music”. You could say it’s “chill out”, ambient music. This isn’t “heavy” electronic music, but rather pretty light and easily digestible, even for people who mostly don’t like electronic music. Cretu has some interesting vocal guests again, and the contribution of clean, beautiful female voices really stands out, the kind that has graced Enigma albums since the very beginning, when Cretu’s wife at the time, Sandra, sang on the records. The melodies are typically songful and flowing again, but with Cretu everything already sounds so routine and heartless, even when the songs are more emotionally charged. The guy knows exactly what to do to get the crowd “pumped”.
Enigma’s new album is nothing spectacular, but it’s once again masterfully composed and polished down to the last detail. The guy is obviously a perfectionist. You can hear it in the extremely clean, almost sterile production too. The album may really not have much heart (even though it contains quite a few emotional melodies), but a musician of this caliber deserves attention and respect. This album is as good as expected, and as expected, nothing more than that. “Better safe than sorry,” as the English say. And so the album is very “playing it safe”.
Lineup
Michael Cretu – all instruments, vocals, samples
Guests: Andru Donalds, Nikita C., Sebastian C., Nanuk, Margarita Roig
Production
Michael Cretu
Track list
1. Encounters 3:12
2. Seven Lives 4:25
3. Touchness” 3:35
4. The Same Parents 5:19
5. Fata Morgana 3:23
6. Hell’s Heaven 3:51
7. La Puerta del Cielo 3:28
8. Distorted Love 4:11
9. Je T’aime Till My Dying Day 4:18
10. Déjà Vu 2:56
11. Between Generations 4:30
12. The Language of Sound 4:20
