Enigma (musical project)

Enigma
Origin Germany[1]
Genres Worldbeat, new-age,[2] downtempo, electronica, experimental
Years active 1990-present
Labels Virgin, EMI, Charisma
Members Michael Cretu
Past members David Fairstein
Frank Peterson
Sandra Cretu
Louisa Stanley
Peter Cornelius
Jens Gad
Andreas Harde
Ruth-Ann Boyle
Andru Donalds
Elizabeth Houghton
Notable instruments
Sampler
Drum machine
Synthesizer
Keyboard
Korg M1
Alchemist
Merlin

Enigma is a German new age musical project formed in 1990 by Michael Cretu, David Fairstein and Frank Peterson.[1] The Romanian-born Cretu conceived the Enigma project while working in Germany, but based his recording studio A.R.T. Studios in Ibiza, Spain, from the early 1990s until May 2009, where he has recorded all of Enigma's studio releases to date. Cretu is both the composer and the producer of the project. His former wife, pop singer Sandra, often provided vocals on Enigma tracks. Jens Gad co-arranged and played guitar on three of the Enigma albums. Peter Cornelius also contributed to Enigma during the 1990s.

History

From the late 1970s onward, Michael Cretu already had his own music career on his hands and apart from some collaboration efforts with several other musicians, he also produced his wife's albums. Before Enigma, he released a number of albums under his own name, but none of them sold particularly well. Cretu revealed in an interview that he believed that his ideas were running out at that point.

In December 1990, after eight months of preparation, Cretu released Enigma's debut album, MCMXC a.D., which received over 57 platinum awards worldwide, and topped the charts in 41 countries,[3] directly becoming the most successful Virgin Records act during that time.[4] The album was Cretu's first commercial success through the single "Sadeness (Part I)", which juxtaposed Gregorian chants and sexual overtones over a dance beat that was very peculiar to the ears of the public at that time. Cretu explained that the album was about unsolved crimes and philosophical themes such as life after death, hence the name Enigma. He had previously used a Gregorian-type chant on the opening seconds of Sandra's 1987 single "Everlasting Love", without integrating them into other parts of the song. "Sadeness" quickly rose to the top of the charts in Germany and France; it went on to become a worldwide hit. Later Cretu would claim that the now signature Enigma sound was inspired after falling asleep on the London Underground. The title of the album MCMXC a.D. is the Roman numeral for the year of its release, 1990.

Before the album was released, Cretu was cautious of the response towards the upcoming album, decided to forgo mentioning his and most of the personnel's real names and credited himself as Curly M.C., while the album sleeve contained little information about the background of the project, furthering the mystery about the creators of the album and leading to speculation whether Enigma was a band, a person or a group.

In 1993, Cretu was given an offer by producers to compose the full soundtrack of the motion picture Sliver, but he was unable to accept the offer. Instead, he came up with "Carly's Song" ("Age of Loneliness" in the album and video releases) and "Carly's Loneliness", which were used in the movie and credited in the motion picture soundtrack as well.

In the same year, The Cross of Changes was released. It received about the same response from the public (it sold 6 million copies in a year). However, both of the albums also attracted lawsuits over the issue of sampling from other music sources.

In 1996, Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi! (French for "The King is dead. Long live the King!") was released. Cretu's idea was that this third album was the child of the previous two albums, and therefore included familiar elements of Gregorian chants and Sanskrit/Vedic chants in it. Though the album was as meticulously crafted by Cretu as the earlier two albums, it failed to achieve the same level of success that they enjoyed. As a result only two of the three singles originally slated were released, with the third one ("The Roundabout") being silently canceled in 1998.

The 2000 release of The Screen Behind the Mirror included samples from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana on four tracks on the album. This time the Gregorian chants were toned down tremendously, although Shakuhachi flutes and other traditional Enigma signatures remain. Only "Gravity of Love" and "Push the Limits" were released as singles from the album. Ruth-Ann Boyle (from the band Olive) and Andru Donalds mark their first appearances on the Enigma project.

In 2001, Cretu released a new single called "Turn Around" together with Love Sensuality Devotion: The Greatest Hits and Love Sensuality Devotion: The Remix Collection to end what he considers to be the first chapter of Enigma. A light show was held at the Munich Planetarium in conjunction of the release of the compilation albums.

2003's Voyageur saw a change of direction for the project. Practically all of the prominent Enigma signature elements (the ethnic and Gregorian chants, the Shakuhachi flutes) were no longer employed. As a result many fans did not appreciate this new direction, and sales were affected. From a statistical point of view, every Enigma studio album to date has sold roughly half of what the previous release did.

To commemorate the fifteen years of Enigma, a special limited-edition album called Fifteen Years was launched, which was the size of an LP vinyl disk, with Leonardo da Vinci's art in the cover, a big booklet with extra art, and featured eight compact discs: all the previous albums, the DVD Remember the Future, and a special and exclusive bonus CD, The Dusted Variations, which included the project's greatest hits remade by another project. All of the songs are different from the originals and use minimal percussion. This disc also contained the single version of "Hello and Welcome", which was later released as a single. On 28 August 2005, Enigma's management Crocodile Music announced the release of "Hello and Welcome" as a single. Originally it was slated to be released in October; the release date was moved to 25 November 2005 and was released in Germany on 10 March 2006. Much like Voyageur, the song shows little similarity to earlier Enigma works. The song was the walk-in music of the German boxer Felix Sturm.

On 26 September 2006, Enigma's sixth album A posteriori was released worldwide, containing a new version of "Hello and Welcome" and the new song "Goodbye, Milky Way", which, despite earlier announcements, was not released as a single. The album is more techno- and pop-oriented electronic music than any previous one. The concept is based on such sciences as astronomy, physics, history, and sociology. A DVD version of A posteriori was released on 16 December 2006, which featured kaleidoscope images in synchronization with the multi-channel remastered music.

In late March 2007, a special private lounge remix album version of A posteriori was released on the iTunes Music Store. This compilation includes 12 new remixed tracks from the album by artists such as Boca Junior, Tocadisco, and more. Some of these tracks were available previously on the original A posteriori iTunes version of the album and on the previously mentioned DVD release.

On 19 September 2008, Enigma's seventh album Seven Lives Many Faces was released worldwide. The lead single, "Seven Lives", is a fusion of modern and classical elements.

The Platinum Collection, a 3-CD compilation, was released on 27 November 2009 in Germany, and on 9 February 2010 worldwide. The first CD contains Enigma hits. The second CD contains remixes. The third CD is a collection of "lost tracks", musical experiments which never were finalized and released previously.

On 5 October 2010, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the first album MCMXC a.D., The "Enigma's Social Song" project began.[5] Enigma fans were asked to submit vocals for a new Enigma song. The public were then asked to vote, with the winning submission "Fei mea" being provided by Latvian singer Fox Lima for the chorus.[6]

The top 3 runners up: Mark Joshua from Brazil, J. Spring from Spain and Rasa Serra from Lithuania provided other important parts of the vocals like the bridge, backing and verse of the final version of the single.[7] Fans also influenced further stages of the song's creation by voting on elements such as a lead instrument, general mood and style of the track.

The final mix of the single named "MMX The Social Song" was released on 15 December 2010.

It became the first song ever created for and by the fans via internet.[7]

In 2015 Enigma will be releasing its eighth album as the official website have started the initial pre release promotions online.

Influence

Enigma's first two studio albums also led to the creation and popularity of bands and musical groups that follow similar styles, often called "Enigmatic Music". The first album was an important album to future mainstream New Age music. The album not only popularized the "Enigmatic" music style but also introduced some technical changes in music production. With MCMXC a.D., Michael Cretu developed the technical features and intentions of sampling. Though samples were in use long before (introduced by such musicians as Jean-Michel Jarre, Klaus Schulze and others), Cretu built his own music around whole sequences of previously recorded parts. His method was not remixing and remodeling, but rather recontextualisation – by changing a piece of music’s natural environment. This was a new way of composing and creating albums, which was adopted by some Hip-Hop artists, electronic music producers, and even Rock producers as well. It was also one of the first albums to be recorded directly to hard drive. Furthermore, MCMXC a.D. was arguably one of the first steps in a series of developments which would eradicate the division between mainstream and underground music.[8]

Era and Gregorian (led by former Enigma member Frank Peterson) are among some notable groups which capitalized songs which heavily incorporate Gregorian chants in their works. Enigma and Deep Forest are also to be considered by many to have brought the tribal chant genre to the ears of the public. Achillea, a musical project by arranger and guitarist on several Enigma albums, Jens Gad, features music with similar atmospherics, while featuring female vocals in different languages, with different singers from different parts of the world. Enigma also influenced Christopher von Deylen's musical project Schiller. The influence can be heard in any album by the band. Cretu's musical project is also included into the list of influences of Schiller.[9]

Critics and fans have noted down the probable influences if not similarities of Enigma and the works of other notable musicians. Some examples include PR MRS Delerium's Semantic Spaces album, Mike Oldfield's albums, The Songs of Distant Earth and Tubular Bells III, all B-Tribe's albums as well as other Claus Zundel projects and Sarah Brightman's cover of Hooverphonic's song, "Eden".

Several prominent songs from the project have appeared on notable TV shows and movies:

Song Type of Work Name Comments
"Beyond the Invisible" TV series La Femme Nikita
"Carly's Song" Movie Sliver
"Carly's Loneliness" Movie Sliver
"Gravity of Love" Movie The Scorpion King In the preview trailer
"I Love You ... I'll Kill You" Movie Money Train
Eraser In the preview trailer
"Modern Crusaders" TV series La Femme Nikita
"Principles of Lust" Movie Single White Female
Sliver
Charlie's Angels
"Return to Innocence" Movie Man of the House In end credits
Exit to Eden
TV series The Outer Limits In episode The Conversion
My So-Called Life
Cold Case In episode Sanctuary.
The L Word
American Idol Used in an audition.
"Sadeness (Part I)" Movie Boxing Helena
Single White Female
Exit to Eden
The 13th Warrior In HD DVD trailer
1492: Conquest of Paradise In teaser trailer
Tropic Thunder In a faux trailer for Kirk Lazarus' upcoming film
Gomorra
TV series Cold Case In episode Who's Your Daddy?
Chappelle's Show
It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia In episode The Gang Gets a New Member
The Brothers Grunt
"Smell of Desire" Movie Bounce In the preview trailer
TV Series Temptation Island
"The Eyes of Truth" Movie The Matrix In the preview trailer
The Long Kiss Goodnight

"Return to Innocence" also appeared in numerous TV commercials around the world, including one for Virgin Atlantic.

Awards

Recording technologies

Michael Cretu recorded the first five Enigma albums in his private A.R.T. Studios, located on the Spanish island Ibiza. From 1988 until 2001, the studio was located in his home in Santa Eulària des Riu, and from 2001 till 2008 on the hills near Sant Antoni. This studio was designed and built by Gunter Wagner and Bernd Steber (Sydney/Australia). The equipment in the studio regularly changed. The sixth and seventh albums were recorded using a mobile computerized system, Alchemist.[14] In 2010 a new system, Merlin, was ready to use, and the first music recorded on it was the "MMX The Social Song".[15]

Sampling and lawsuits

In 1994, Cretu was sued by Munich-based choir Capella Antiqua and its record label Polydor Germany for infringing its "right of personality" through distortion in the samples used in "Sadeness (Part I)" and "Mea Culpa". The samples were taken from Capella Antiqua's 1976 LP Paschale Mysterium; while the musical compositions were in public domain, Capella Antiqua's recording of them was copyrighted. European law also recognizes moral rights (droit moral) in works that American copyright does not.[16]

Cretu was not spared over the issue of sampling when in 1998, Difang and Igay Duana from Taiwan's Ami tribe filed a suit over uncredited vocals in "Return to Innocence".[17]

Both of the lawsuits were settled, with the source of each sample being granted compensation and credit for the sampled performance; however, the anonymity that Cretu intended to keep after the release of the first album[18] was shattered due to the first lawsuit.

Personnel

Current members
Former members
  • David Fairstein - lyrics (1990–1997)
  • Frank Peterson - samples (1990-1991)
  • Sandra Cretu - vocals (1990–2003)
  • Todd Peleg - background vocals (1993-1994)
  • Louisa Stanley - voices (1990–1996; 2006)
  • Peter Cornelius - guitars (1993–1996)
  • Jens Gad - guitars (1993–2003)
  • Andreas Harde - vocals (1993)
  • Ruth-Ann Boyle - vocals (1999–2003)
  • Andru Donalds - vocals (1999–2008)
  • Elizabeth Houghton - voices (2000)

Discography

Main article: Enigma discography

See also

Sources

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Weinert, Ellie (1995-03-04). "Billboard: Casebook Enigma". Billboard. Retrieved 2013-08-24.
  2. ↑ "MUSIC REVIEW: Enigma's LSD—Electronic & Choral Avant Garde, Engima Releases Greatest Hits—The Tech". Tech.mit.edu. 13 November 2001. Retrieved 14 October 2010.
  3. ↑ The Enigma Archives (1998-04-10). "Section 3: The Catalogue". The Enigma Archives. Retrieved 2012-03-07.
  4. ↑ "Most Successful Virgin-Act 1990/91 | The Enigma Archives". Enigma-music.com. 1957-05-18. Retrieved 2014-04-17.
  5. ↑ "What Enigma's "Social Song" is about". Enigma Social Song. Retrieved 2012-03-07.
  6. ↑ "Enigma Social Song Winner Announced |". Newagemusic.nu. 2010-11-02. Retrieved 2012-03-07.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Enigma's "Social Song"". Enigmasocialsong.com. Retrieved 2012-03-07.
  8. ↑ "Musical Memories 3 | Experimental Enigma Musical Memories". Tokafi.com. Retrieved 2014-04-17.
  9. ↑ "SCHILLER op MySpace Music – Gratis gestreamde MP3’s, foto’s en Videoclips". Profile.myspace.com. 2005-10-08. Retrieved 2010-10-14.
  10. ↑ "MUSIC | Picture gallery: World Music Awards 2002". BBC News. 2002-03-07. Retrieved 2010-10-14.
  11. ↑ "Enigma Awards". mfyi.com. Retrieved 2010-10-14.
  12. ↑ "SON OF THE CRETU MACHINE - Sandra/Cretu/Enigma/T.A.A.W. Virtual Fan Club". Enigma-fanclub.com. Retrieved 2010-10-14.
  13. ↑ "ENIGMA's Seventh Studio Album, Seven Lives Many Faces, Transports Listeners to New...". Reuters. 19 August 2008. Retrieved 2010-10-14.
  14. ↑ "Enigma | Official Site - A.R.T. // Alchemist // All In One Mobile Studio". Enigmaspace.com. Retrieved 2012-03-07.
  15. ↑ "Enigma | Official Site - A.R.T. // Merlin // Description & Concept". Enigmaspace.com. Retrieved 2012-03-07.
  16. ↑ Taylor, Timothy Dean. Strange Sounds: Music, Technology & Culture, Routledge (2001): 233.
  17. ↑ Guy, Nancy. "Trafficking Taiwan Aboriginal Voices", Handle with Care: Ownership and Control of Ethnographic Materials, ed. Jaarsma, S.R. University of Pittsburgh Press (2002): 195-206.
  18. ↑ Martyn Woolley. "Enigma Biography". Enigmamusic.com. Retrieved 2014-04-17.

External links

German

English