ENIGMA
(Michael Cretu)ENIGMA
(Michael Cretu)Worldwide statistics for Enigma’s debut album, its equally popular preceding single, the Gregorian chant-driven ‘Sadeness (Part One)’, plus subsequent albums The Cross Of Changes (1993), Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi! (1996), and The Screen Behind The Mirror (2000), are truly staggering: more than 50 number one chart positions and 85 platinum awards! 25 million album sales down the line (and counting), is it any wonder that Enigma is the most successful German pop music project ever?But project is perhaps the operative word here. For it was 11 years ago that composer and producer Michael Cretu secretly set Enigma on a faceless musical trip around the world, figuratively and literally speaking – figuratively in that Cretu (credited on MCMXC a.D., The Cross Of Changes and their associated singles as ‘Curly M.C.’) utilised the best music technology in the world to sample the delights of global rhythms, sounds and voices, creatively fusing them to a contemporary danceable beat with a pop sensibility and production quality to die for; literally in that he successfully sold his idea to the world. And on his own terms too.
Once, when quizzed about his legendary shying away from the rigour of pop music’s well oiled publicity machine, bravado momentarily got the better of Cretu: “I knew that with the product I had, I was in a position to say just how I wanted things to go. No pictures. Nothing personal. Just Enigma.” So, again figuratively and literally speaking, Enigma it was, and mysterious Cretu remains, as is his want.
Having confidence in your music is all well and good, but playing God in the capricious pop world where 11 years can equal several lifetimes is something else entirely. Surely Cretu must have garnered an acute understanding of the complicated working mechanisms of the music industry to exert such exacting demands?
Yet,
outside this mysterious musical world of Enigma, for many Cretu himself remains
something of an enigma: a musical prodigy born in Romania on 28 May 1957, he
began piano studies aged six at Lehrenstalt High School, a state-run establishment
for nurturing young musical talent in Bucharest. In 1968 he underwent a five-month
intensive study period in Paris, later progressing to the prestigious Academy
of Music in Frankfurt between 1975 and ’78, doubling up as a jobbing session
musician to earn his keep, before taking up German citizenship upon graduating
with distinctions. Despite being an accomplished concert pianist, with a long-held
ambition to become a classical conductor, those late-night studio sessions unexpectedly
paid dividends as Cretu’s career careened toward the pop charts in which the
Enigma name would one day regularly jockey for pole position: “It was more real
life,” he would later reflect.
Initiation into this ‘real life’ profession came with one-time German Eurodisco chart-toppers Boney M, brainchild of ’70s production maestro Frank Farian: Cretu is credited with keyboards on 1978’s Night Flight To Venus album (replete with mega hits ‘Rasputin’, ‘Painter Man’, ‘Rivers Of Babylon’ and ‘Brown Girl In The Ring’). Cretu was clearly quick on the uptake, soon warming the producer’s chair for a string of mostly Central European popular acts like Moti Special, Hubert KaH, Austrian singer/songwriter Peter Cornelius (with whom Cretu later collaborated on the German-language Cornelius + Cretu in 1992; Cornelius also played guitar on the second and third Enigma albums) and, most notably, singing sensation Sandra (who’s albums sold a respectable seven million units with Cretu at the production helm). To say the latter was a successful partnership is an understatement – Sandra married Cretu in 1988, and contributed vocals to all the Enigma albums.
From a more international standpoint, Cretu co-produced the track ‘The Time Has Come’ on Mike Oldfield’s 1987 offering Islands, a phrase that was paradoxically used throughout his own anthemic track ‘Mea Culpa’ on Enigma’s MCMXC a.D., having relocated to the Spanish island of Ibiza with Sandra beforehand (where, coincidentally, his old production mentor Frank Farian also resides, as briefly did Oldfield). Rumours of Oldfield encouraging Cretu to cut down his busy production schedule in favour of concentrating on his own music do not easily hold water in light of the fact that Cretu’s largely forgotten first album, Moon, Light And Flowers, was released on Polygram way back in 1979, releasing two further albums for Virgin in Germany – 1983’s Legionäre and Die Chinesische Mauer (also released in 1985 with English lyrics as The Invisible Man) – before hitting international pay dirt with Enigma.
It’s been suggested that Enigma’s infectious debut recordings dramatically altered pop’s musical landscape. Indeed, as is acutely observed on last year’s Remember The Future 11-song DVD retrospective, in which Cretu’s image mysteriously appears only for a matter of seconds, “While restless spirits were changing trends, styles and fashions on a seasonal basis, Enigma remains a continuum, which reinvents itself. Whether you want to dream or dance, contemplate or love, meditate or make a joyful noise, Enigma makes music for the entire being, and each listener interprets it in his or her own way – ambiguous, intricate and seductive.”
Some might say this statement sounds somewhat pompous. They might be right, for of course it has its agenda, but there’s no denying Cretu’s considerable achievements as Enigma: no doubt Virgin are keen for Cretu’s musical alter ego to retain its status as Germany’s biggest-selling pop project ever; no doubt the simultaneous release of two new Enigma compilation albums, LoveSensualityDevotion - The Greatest Hits and LoveSensualityDevotion - The Remix Collection, will do much to further this cause.
For his part, Cretu prefers to let the music do the talking, as is evident in a record company press release where the composer briefly attempts to decipher those intriguingly titled new ‘L.S.D.’ albums: “I’m addicted to music. So, music is like a drug for me. And others, too, will be able to go on a trip – in a good sense.”
Were you personally involved in treating any of the tracks on the new LoveSensualityDevotion - The Greatest Hits compilation at your Ibiza-based private A.R.T. Studios – creating new crossfades between tracks, for example?
Of
course! Enigma is my baby, so I can make these kinds of crossfades better than
anybody else; I’ve always been the producer, the sound engineer and everything.
On Enigma 4 [a.k.a. The Screen
Behind The Mirror] I was also working with Jens Gad nearly everyday in
the studio, but all the other albums were basically done alone.
How did you feel about revisiting older Enigma material again for this project?
One of the aims with this album was to produce a listening experience whereby you cannot tell which tracks are 10 years old and which are current. Also, I wanted to breathe new life into some of those older songs. The compilation is different – you hear other shades in the songs that sound new, but this is only because they are presented in another context.
The LoveSensualityDevotion - The Remix Collection album title is self-explanatory. How did this project come about?
It’s funny, but it was never my intention to do a remix album. What happened is I was looking for a radio edit for the normal compilation; I pushed the wrong button on the CD player by mistake and a completely different song started playing that I didn’t immediately recognise! I don’t know what song it was – it might have been ‘Age Of Loneliness’ – but I thought it was one hell of a remix! I thought I was going completely nuts, so I invited some other people to come in and listen because I’d forgotten all about it. I realised that so many elements of what we did 10 years ago are now in fashion – the structure and the kind of sounds being used. Then I said, “Oh my God! Let’s listen to the other remixes.” I ended up choosing the really good ones and put them all together, so I think it’s a very nice remix album. It has some four-on-the-floor elements, but not exclusively.
What’s your opinion of today’s seemingly remix-obsessed popular music culture?
I never pay too much attention; nine different versions of a song – I mean, how crazy! Here I simply tried to put out the best version of each song I could find. I do remixes for some situations, but I’m not interested in putting five versions on one record.
Both new albums were premiered at the Hamburg Planetarium on 1 October as part of a new laser and light spectacular entitled Enigma: LoveSensualityDevotion - The Planetarium Show, a 50-minute programme especially designed for such domed structures, featuring Enigma music videos combined with effects created by the Zeiss Universal Laser Image Projector (ZULIP). Again, were you in any way involved or consulted in the preparation of this exciting event?
Actually,
I always wanted to premiere Enigma 2 [a.k.a. The
Cross Of Changes] in a planetarium, but somehow it never worked out.
More recently, we did a DVD [Remember The Future]
and the director of the planetarium in Hamburg liked it very much so he called
Virgin saying he’d like to make an Enigma programme based on the videos. He
proposed a public showing every day; we agreed, but we wanted to premiere the
albums to the press first. I gave them all the music from the CDs, then they
told me what they intended to do and how they’re going to do it.
I suggested a few small changes here and there – they wanted to start the show with a different piece of music, for example. But it’s very well done, created by the guy behind the DVD, who I knew already.
Both LoveSensualityDevotion albums feature the new single ‘Turn Around’. How would you compare this with earlier Enigma singles?
It’s difficult to say in a few words, because, for Enigma purposes, it’s a very heavy-sounding song. I was in the mood to do something different, but I think I could only do this kind of song as a one-off single. I like this song more and more – not because it’s the latest thing I’ve done as Enigma, but because of its simplicity; it has a charm about it and it’s so full of life. For me, it represents what Enigma is all about, but in a very modern and unobvious way. It has all the famous ingredients and spices that made Enigma successful – a little flute, a little speech and some monks in the middle part – that are like shades of the past, but with some clear development as well. I’m very happy with how all these aspects have integrated together in a very organic way. Yet, you wouldn’t notice unless you paid attention.
It’s been reported that you relocated to the idyllic Spanish island of Ibiza in 1988 with your wife, Sandra, where you subsequently bought an old farmhouse, which doubled as your family residence and private recording studio (A.R.T. Studios), and also an 18th Century house in Ibiza Town, in which you established a basement restaurant. Why, specifically, did you choose to make Ibiza your home?
In
Germany, it was always freezing in winter, so my wife said, “Please, let’s buy
a little house somewhere south so I don’t have to face another cold and wet
German winter!” So we bought a little old farmhouse retreat on Ibiza with a
view to getting away from the cold for a couple of months each year.
Then I said, “Why don’t we build a little demo studio there? Then we can maybe stay for five months!” Eventually, this demo studio became better and better equipped – so much so that one day someone working there with me said, “You can work here just as well as anywhere else, so why bother returning to Germany?” So that’s how we came to stay on Ibiza.
I understand A.R.T. Studios is about to be relocated to the grounds of a large new house that Sandra and yourself have been having built elsewhere on Ibiza for the last six years…
The construction work was only finished one week ago, but the equipment isn’t installed yet.
In what ways will it differ from your previous studios?
There are similarities – from the shape of the room to the philosophy of where to place the mixing desk and equipment racks, and so on. This layout has been perfect for my kind of work for so many years, why change it?
But the design is different; the control room is smaller, because I don’t like big rooms. It was necessary to make them bigger to accommodate the big mixing desks of the past, but that’s changed now.
Speaking briefly of equipment, has your classical training impacted your musical success as Enigma in any way or form? Or is it mainly breakthroughs in music technology that ultimately allowed you to develop this now instantly recognisable sound?
Enigma has a lot of classical elements in it, for sure; my studies have made it much easier to do this kind of music. But, without any doubt, I think the whole experience I’ve had over the years with pop music, the technical equipment and so on, have also played a major part in Enigma. Without all this equipment I could study a classical piece tomorrow, yet Enigma would still not be finished. The amount of what could be called human experience is much bigger than technical knowledge.
You’re currently working on a new Sandra album with your wife, set for possible release later this year. This is Sandra’s first album since 1995’s Fading Shades; what can listeners expect this time around?
We chose the material very carefully. I think it’s a very good choice for the times, taking into account her history and everything, but it’s a new kind of Sandra – much better! We’re not just repeating what we did years ago.
Recording is completed, and now we’re in the middle of mixing.
And finally, aside from your current Enigma projects and the forthcoming Sandra album, what can we expect from Michael Cretu next – another Enigma album of totally new material, perhaps?
After all my equipment is installed and so on, maybe I’ll start thinking about Enigma 6, or maybe some other project. Right now, I don’t know. Besides, I won’t be able to start anything new until the new studio is working fine. There’s lots of testing to be done, but you never know what I will discover while testing!
MCMXC a.D. (Virgin Records, 1991)
The Cross Of Changes (Virgin Records, 1993)
Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi! (Virgin Records, 1996)
The Screen Behind The Mirror (Virgin Records, 2000)
LoveSensualityDevotion - The Greatest Hits (Virgin Records, 2001)
LoveSensualityDevotion - The Remix Collection (Virgin Records, 2001)
