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Enigma: MCMXC a.D

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s

Artist: Enigma
Title: MCMXC a.D
Released: 2000
Label: Virgin Records
Time: 43:32
Producer(s): Michael Cretu
Appears with: Michael Cretu
Category: Pop/Rock
Rating: *********. (9/10)
Media type: CD
Purchase date:  2000
Price in €: 16,99
Web address: www.enigma.de

 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Gate (Cretu/Cretu) - 2:03
[2] Push the Limits (Cretu-Gad/Cretu) - 6:27
[3] Gravity of Love (Cretu/Cretu) - 4:01
[4] Smell of Desire (Cretu/Cretu-Fairstein) - 4:55
[5] Modern Crusaders (Cretu/Cretu) - 3:51
[6] Traces (Light and Weight) (Cretu-Gad) - 4:13
[7] Screen Behind the Mirror (Cretu/Cretu) - 3:59
[8] Endless Quest (Cretu) - 3:07
[9] Camera Obscura (Cretu/Cretu) - 1:39
[10] Between Mind & Heart (Cretu/Cretu) - 3:59
[11] Silence Must Be Heard (Cretu-Gad/Cretu) - 5:20  

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Michael Cretu - Main performer, Engineer
Jens Gad - Guitars, Main performer

Elisabeth Hughton - The voices
Sandra Cretu - The voices
Ruth-Ann (from Olive) Donalds - Lead vocals
Andru Donalds - Lead vocals

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Eines vorweg: Enigma-Fans bekommen mit The Secret Behind The Mirror genau das, was sie erwarten: eine qualitativ hochwertige Cretu-Produktion, die, wie schon der Vorgänger Le Roi Est Morte, Vive Le Roi, auf einen routinierten Mix aus Mystik, Mythos, Magie und Melodien setzt. Da macht es auch nichts, wenn das Album zur Geburtsstunde des neuen Millenniums nicht viel Neues bietet. Michael Cretu bedient sich locker im großen Musik-Supermarkt und leiht sich schon im Opener "The Gate" Carl Orffs Carmina Burana aus. Damit sind große Gefühle schon mal programmiert. Auch sonst bleibt alles beim Alten: Rhythmus-Maschinen, die wie aus den 80er Jahren klingen, werden mit bedeutungsschwangeren Lyrics ("We have the power to face the future") zu einem Soundteppich gewebt, auf dem die Stimme von Cretus Gattin wie in 1001 Nacht dahinschwebt. Ob der Hörer mit The Screen Behind The Mirror tatsächlich in eine Welt jenseits aller (Spiegel-)Bilder tauchen kann, bleibt der Imagination des Einzelnen überlassen. Es scheint jedoch, als hätte Cretu sich eher an Abbildern orientiert, als den wahren Blick hinter den Spiegel gewagt. Enigma-Fans indes sind vor bösen Überraschungen sicher. Für sie liegt die Wahrheit auch weiterhin irgendwo "Between Mind And Heart".

Dirk Ruschepaul, Amazon.de



Michael Cretu, the man behind Enigma, formulates an intriguing symbiosis between New Age musicality, classical and world-music influences, and dance-club rhythms. Gregorian chants, Native American meditations, and the breathy musings of a French chanteuse have been incorporated into legendary dance-floor hits from his previous three albums. The leitmotif of his fourth album, The Screen Behind the Mirror, is the grandly ominous "O Fortuna" from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. "O Fortuna" opens the set and appears repeatedly throughout the tracks, sometimes lurking in the background, sometimes storming into the forefront. This album marks Enigma's continued foray into the ambient New Age realm, as Cretu's efforts focus more and more on melding compatible styles of world music, while the tracks are mixed into a single continuum. There's a lot to chew on; bits and pieces of church bells, Middle Eastern singing, and native instrumentation from you-name-it fold into each other on a steady current of shuffling hip-hop rhythms and velvety synthesized melodies. Cretu lends vocals to several songs, and his voice stands somewhere between Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins (though it's not as good as either), tending to distract from the album's flow and mood, lending it more of a prog-rock feel at times that he probably intended. Albums like this continue to invoke the same question: Is this a beautiful, transcendent union of artificial and indigenous sounds or is it just a bunch of self-indulgent schlock? It can be answered either way with equal conviction.

Beth Massa - Amazon.com



With the 1991 hit "Sadeness," from the album MCMXC A.D., Enigma mixed Gregorian chants with 20th-century dance beats, sneaking new-age atmosphere in the back door of nightclubs worldwide and generating a multiplatinum hit. The followup, 1994's CROSS OF CHANGES, enjoyed similar success by blending Arabic melodies and Native American chants into a slicker, more pop sound. With THE SCREEN BEHIND THE MIRROR, Michael Cretu -- the 39-year-old Romanian who records under the Enigma moniker -- continues in a similar vein, making synth-heavy dance-trance for a new-age culture that wants it both ways. Imbuing his music with modern mysticism and timeless rhythms, Cretu counters pipe organs with electric guitars and juxtaposes ambient interludes with bursts of choral splendor. "Gravity of Love" anchors ethereal vocals with spacey loops and clubby beats while "Camera Obscura" pairs recorders and tribal drums and "Modern Crusaders" rocks to a Peter Gabrielesque world vibe. Throughout the album, Cretu drops samples of Carl Orff's choral epic "Carmina Burana" to recapitulative, epic effect. Like a Loreena McKennitt for the dance floor, a Dead Can Dance for the new millennium, Enigma is postmodern new age for an electronica nation.

Peter Rutter - Barnes & Noble



Enigma's fourth album The Screen Behind the Mirror continues Michael Cretu's explorations into ambient new age, Gregorian chant, world music, and dance rhythms. Cretu's vocals play a more prominent role than on earlier Enigma albums, which, unfortunately, often detracts from the songs' other diverse elements -- which include church bells, Middle Eastern and European choirs, sensuous female vocals, and a wide array of ethnic percussion and instruments. The album's pieces are mixed together continuously and are united thematically by samples and reinterpretations of Orff's "O Fortuna" and other material from Carmina Burana, giving songs like "Endless Quest," "The Gate," and "Smell of Desire" a flowing, cohesive feel. Though it doesn't reveal significant growth or change in Enigma's work, The Screen Behind the Mirror will please fans of the group's other atmospheric works.

Heather Phares - All Music Guide


What if Soul II Soul's Jazzy B. was barricaded in a studio and forced to conspire with new age icon John Tesh? Chances are, he'd spawn a recording eerily similar to The Screen Behind The Mirror, the latest effort by Enigma, the Ibiza, Spain brainchild of artist Michael Cretu. The producer reinstates the vibe of Enigma's earlier work here, coupling the soul-stirring spirituality of new age music with the debauchery of disco breakbeats and samples. The group's fourth album is also a rather erotic affair, dropping familiar drum loops over a serene backdrop of pan-flute whistles, romantic guitar melodies, synthesized whale songs and inspiring vocal sentiments. Customary Gregorian chants and operatic overtures make out with the amorous lyrical gestures of such guest vocalists as Olive's Ruth Ann Boyle, who croons over the standout track, "Gravity Of Love." The Screen Behind The Mirror may not help you get any closer to God, but it will provide an alluring backdrop for the pious meditation or the copulation rituals of your choosing.

M. Tye Comer - CMJ.com
    

 L y r i c s


THE GATE

Closest approach to earth:
34,600,000 miles,

Mean distance from the sun:
141,600,000 miles,

Period of rotation around the sun:
1.88089 years,

Sideral rotation period:
24 hours, 37 minutes, 22.66 seconds,

Mean surface atmospheric temperature:
-23 degrees,

Official albedo:
0.159,

Pole star mede:
52 degrees 2880

Official magnitude at mean opposition:
-2.01

Mass:
0.1072

Density:
3.5

"O Fortuna             < "O Fortune >
Velut Luna"            < Like the Moon" >
Status variabilis,     < You are changeable >

Diameter:
0.532,

Inclination for equator:
24.936 degrees,

Gravitational escape velocity:
3121 miles...

Inclination...


PUSH THE LIMITS

Basic instincts, social life.
Paradoxes side by side.

Don't submit to stupid rules
Be yourself and not a fool.
Don't accept average habits
Open your heart and push the limits.

Open your heart [echoes]
And push the limits. [echoes]


GRAVITY OF LOVE

"O Fortuna velut Luna"     < "O Fortune like the Moon" >

Turn around and smell what you don't see
Close your eyes ... it is so clear
Here's the mirror, behind there is a screen
On both ways you can get in.

Don't think twice before you listen to your heart
Follow the trace for a new start.

What you need and everything you'll feel
Is just a question of the deal
In the eye of storm you'll see a lonely dove
The experience of survival is the key
To the gravity of love.

"O Fortuna velut Luna"     < "O Fortune like the Moon" >

The path of excess leads to
The tower of Wisdom

The path of excess leads to
The tower of Wisdom

Try to think about it...
That's the chance to live your life and discover
What it is, what's the gravity of love.

"O Fortuna velut Luna"     < "O Fortune like the Moon" >

Look around just people, can you hear their voice
Find the one who'll guide you to the limits of your choice.

But if you're in the eye of storm
Just think of the lonely dove
The experience of survival is the key
To the gravity of love.

"O Fortuna velut Luna"     < "O Fortune like the Moon" >


SMELL OF DESIRE

Je ne dors plus     < I can't sleep anymore >
Je suis folle.         < I am crazy. >
Je m'abandonne   < I am letting myself go >
Je ne dors plus     < I can't sleep anymore >
Je suis a toi.         < I'm yours. >

[In reverse mode]

In nomine Christi, Amen      < In the name of Christ, So be it >
In nomine Christi, Amen      < In the name of Christ, So be it >
In nomine Christi, Amen      < In the name of Christ, So be it >
In nomine Christi, Amen      < In the name of Christ, So be it >
In nomine Christi, Amen      < In the name of Christ, So be it >
In nomine Christi, Amen      < In the name of Christ, So be it >

The eternal flame will always burn
Feel - understand - and learn.


MODERN CRUSADERS

Don't look back
The time has come
All the pain turns into love.

We're not submissive, we're not aggressive
But they think we can't defend.

Stand up, join us, modern crusaders alive
We have the power to face the future
Cause we are the fighters
Just fighting for our rights.

They're accusing, like always without knowing
What is just fiction or what is the truth
They have no mission, they have no passion
But they dare to tell us what's bad and what's good!

Stand up, join us, modern crusaders alive
We have the power who'll face the future
Cause we are the fighters
Just fighting for our fights.

Est affectus                        < Drive on >
Et defectus                         < And weighted down, >
Semper in angaria.                  < Always enslaved. >

Quod per sortem                     < Since Fate >
Sternit fortem,                     < Strikes down the strong man, >
Mecum omnes plangite!               < Everyone weep with me! >

Nunc obdurat                        < First oppresses >
Et tunc curat                       < And then soothes >
Ludo mentis aciem,                  < As fancy takes it; >
Egestatem,                          < Poverty, >
Potestatem                          < Power. >

Stand up, join us, modern crusaders alive
We have the power who'll face the future
Cause we are the fighters
Just fighting for our fights.

Stand up, join us, modern crusaders alive!


THE SCREEN BEHIND THE MIRROR

Here's the mirror
Behind there is a screen
Turn around
On both ways you can get in
The experience of survival
Look around just people, can you hear their voice
Find the one who'll guide you to the limits of your choice
The experience of survival
Try to think about it...
That's the chance to live your life and discover
Try to think about it
The experience of survival
The experience...
The experience of survival
The experience...


CAMERA OBSCURA

[In reverse mode]

Cause we are the fighters
Just fighting for our rights
Stand up, join us, modern crusaders alive
We have the power...

We're not submissive, we're not aggressive
But they think...
Stand up, join us, modern crusaders alive
We have the power...

Sors salutis                         < Fate, in health >
Et virtutis                          < And virtue, >
Michi nunc contraria                 < Is against me >

Hac in hora                          < So at this hour >
Sine nora                            < Without delay >
Cordum pulsum tangite;               < Pluck the vibrating strings; >
Quod per sortem                      < Since Fate >
Sternit fortem,                      < Strikes down the strong man, >
Mecum omnes plangite!                < Everyone weep with me! >


BETWEEN MIND & HEART

It's hard to find the balance when you are in love.
You're lost in the middle cause you have to decide
Between mind & heart.

Heart is the engine of your body
But brain is the engine of your life.

Between mind & heart
Between mind & heart
Between mind & heart


SILENCE MUST BE HEARD

Look into the others eyes, many frustrations
Read between the lines, no words just vibrations
Don't ignore hidden desires
Pay attention, you're playing with fire.

Silence must be heard, noise should be observed.
The time has come to learn, that silence...
Silence must be heard
Or diamonds will burn, friendly cards will turn
Cause silence has the right to be heard.

People talk too much for what they have to say
Words without a meaning, just fading away.

Silence must be heard, noise should be observed
The time has come to learn, that silence...
Silence must be heard
Or diamonds will burn, friendly cards will turn
Cause silence has the right to be heard.
 

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


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