Although German musician, Michael Cretu, had been involved in the music business since the mid-1970s, even he was starting to lose faith in it, when he formed the Enigma electronic music project in 1990 and released an amazing single, ‘Sadness Part 1’. It was originally entitled ‘Sadeness Part 1’ in its German homeland, as it was a sensual Gregorian Latin and French chant mixed with a dance beat that queried the sexual proclivity of the Marquis de Sade.

While there have been several top German acts of the past few years, Enigma is one of the true greats, with over 40million albums sold, 50 No.1 Chart positions and around 100 platinum albums to its credit. Therefore, its latest offering, ‘Seven Lives Many Faces’ has a tall order to fulfill, when it is released on 22nd September. It is almost too simple to dismiss this genre as ‘muzak’, the kind of dross you might hear in the background of a fashion store or, worse, in an elevator. My advice is to sit down, put on the cans and drift away to a broader and genre-defining sound. It is thought provoking, which, of course, it is intended to be. Yet, instead of chanting monks, this album strays even further into the realms of omni-cultural sounds. Mind you, it should, as Enigma has moved the game on a bit since its epoch-defining attitude of the early 1990s.

Naturally, there is electronica by the bucket load but it is neither annoying nor repetitive and every title seems to challenge your mental stimulus to drive you onto another plane and to provide you with a fresh acoustic horizon. There are soothing voices and mellifluous instrumentation in every track and it is an album that you will wheel out to accompany your dinner party with close friends. Enjoyable and relaxing, Enigma is surprisingly sensible music.

Iain Robertson