Enigma truly paved the way for electronic music, especially ambient sounds, and is quite successful even today that this kind of music has been integrated into the mainstream. I can only speculate what inspired Enigma to use Gregorian chants but to mix them with synthesizer sounds and dance beats was gutsy at a time when no one was doing it. I attribute my fascination and fond memories of the smell of incense and the sacred and divine with the many churches I have visited, especially in my childhood. “ Memoria is a song heavily influenced and inspired by Gregorian chants and the Latin language. In fact, it was her voice that was recognized first in “Sadeness” and that helped propel the song onto the charts (remember her 1985 hit “Maria Magdalena”?).īut back to Gregorian chants: As listeners of my music will know, I prefer wordless songs that let my imagination flow freely. What also helped was German pop singer Sandra’s involvement in Enigma’s music. Founders Michael Cretu, David Fairstein and Frank Peterson tried to hide their identities as long as possible, adding to the hype about the project. What helped their success was the element of mystery that shrouded them like a true enigma. was an instant hit and went on to top the charts in more than 40 countries. When their first hit song “Sadeness (Part 1)” came out in 1990, it seemed like the world was stunned and enchanted at the same time. Imagine a time when the music world just got used to synthesizer beats! Rather than a band, Enigma is a musical project that mixed electronic music with traditional elements from the beginning. in which they succeeded in combining electronic music, electrical guitars and Gregorian chants! But I have to admit that my favorite CD remains McMxc A.D. A Posteriori is Enigma’s eighth album and though the compositions have similar tenets to Enigma’s smash hit “Return To Innocence,” the music tides on A Posteriori are renewed, inspired by a story that becomes re-told through a unique and strangely familiar vision.Enigma first caught my attention because of the Gregorian chants they integrated into their music, especially on their third album Le Roi est Mort, released in 1996. It is the only song with guitar intervals that endow the synthetic landscapes with an organic element.Ĭretu’s Enigma crafts a cosmic world of empyreal music notes and prophetic passages that fascinates and holds the listener’s gaze.
The number “Hello And Welcome” exhibits lances of lucent guitar swizzles along lightning streaks of sound waves. The latticed notes on “Message From 10” are bathed in light donning an aural landscape. The soft vocal registers of Louisa Stanley on the track cushion the flowing verses and fluff up the orchestral atmosphere, likened to etudes by Rob Byrd and Freezepop. The fluidity of the notes and the splendor of tender lapses create channels of escape and portals into sonic odysseys. The airy films and reels of interspersing notes on “Dancing With Mephisto” create esoteric passages and reposing tempos. The liquefied synths for “Feel Me Heaven” display ethereal tones that engage into a quadrille-like dance. The synth-generated ambience and drum machine beats produce prodigal reservoirs and lush aesthetics with a World Music flare similar to the Symbion Project and Philip Glass’ compositions for the feature film The Illusionist. With tracks like “Dreaming Of Andromeda,” “Hello And Welcome,” and “Goodbye Milky Way,” Enigma creates a cosmic haze of music notes that describes the story which will emerge as a result of the collision of the two galaxies.Ĭollision often equates destruction but Enigma’s vision is of grandeur and opulence. The liner notes reveal the premise of Enigma’s opus, which is to tell the tale that will begin 3 billion years from now, when the Andromeda Galaxy is expected to collide with the Milky Way to create a new gigantic cosmic world. The songs segue into each other and weave a glittering tapestry. The streaks and beams of sound waves and bubbling notes bobbing through the synth sequences are bright and glistening.Ī Posteriori is arranged, performed, engineered, and produced by Cretu and continues on Enigma’s path to a sonic odyssey of harmonious ether. Cretu’s latest release for Enigma, A Posteriori is an opus of streaming music notes that, if the celestial bodies in space could sing, they might sound like these compositions. Michael Cretu has been recording ethereal dreamscapes under the name Enigman since 1990, and in that time, Enigma’s music has been consistently associated with transcending soundscapes, Gregorian chants, and New Age atmospherics.
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