Enigma – Seven Lives Many Faces
Virgin Records / EMI (9/30/08)
New Age / Electronic / World
As Germany’s most successful musical export in the past twenty years (with more than 40 million records sold and a plethora of charting singles and awards around the world), Enigma’s founding member/mastermind Michael Cretu has shown that he is certainly one of the vanguards of modern new age music. But eighteen years after the band’s (which is actually more of a “musical project” than an actual band) inception, he’s still been unable to match the commercial success of his debut single, “Sadeness, Part 1”. Even 1994’s “Return to Innocence” was huge in its own right, but wasn’t able to gain quite the same recognition.
Not that that really matters, though, as Germany still loves this guy—almost as much as David Hasselhoff—as do fans of new age music, as all seven of Enigma’s albums have continued to garner critical acclaim, and the last album, 2006’s A Posteriori was Grammy-nominated. Not to mention the success of his songs in movies and television (it’s great background music, folks), as the sensual and sultry tone of many of the tracks make them prime love-scene material.
And samples… oh yes, Mr. Cretu does love him some samples. As they’ve been the meat-and-potatoes of a lot of his material over the years, Cretu’s has had his problems with sample-related lawsuits, and after putting the kibosh on them altogether for 2003’s Voyageur, he returned to them for the aforementioned A Posteriori, and in Seven Lives Many Faces, he’s expanded the usage even further, using an unprecedented amount of sounds and samples.
The album’s already garnered some attention in Germany (natch), as the single “Seven Lives”—which was released digitally on Aug. 8—was used as the theme for the coverage of the 2008 Olympics on German television, and “La Puerta de Cielo” also getting some play on German radio. “Seven Lives” is like Cretu’s excursion into hip-hop, mixing a bass drum with symphonic samples for a decidedly DJ Muggs-sounding beat complemented by a dash of vocals. It’s deep and atmospheric, and I’d really be interested to see what Cretu could do when paired with a collective of talented emcees. (Note: I said talented emcees. Lil Wayne, you can just turn back around there and go back to eating your Apple Jacks.) The track doesn’t really have the right kind of structure to be a traditional hip-hop beat, as it’s more free-flowing, but it’s still all very possible. Album closer “The Language of Sound” dips its feet into organic soul, though doesn’t quite embrace the genre as “Seven Lives” does hip-hop, but it’s still a solid track.
“La Puerta del Cielo” is much more of a traditional Enigma track, with the obligatory chanting vocals; slow, sexy beat and ethereal echoing effects. And that’s how most of the rest of the album plays out, though the use of more samples is certainly noticeable as well in order to show Cretu’s evolution without forgetting his roots.
The EBM-infused “Hell’s Heaven” (very Haujobb-like) and dub-infused “Fata Morgana” are certainly highlights, while “Touchness” and “Distorted Love” use a familiar formula, incorporating vocalists for varied amounts of duty, while “Déjà Vu” does the same, though sans the vocalist.
And it’s actually the vocals in some of the tracks that happen to bring the album down. The Bono-esque preaching of “The Same Parents” and the moronic lyrics on “Distorted Love” will make the listener wish that both were instrumentals, since the music is very good throughout. This is really the only qualm that fans will have, unless they happen to not appreciate the aforementioned Muggs tribute track.
While Seven Lives Many Faces does a few new things, it still is very much a recognizable Enigma album. Maybe too much, in fact. A lot of the material really sounds like a lot of the material from albums past, with the exception of a handful of tracks, but still, fans of this genre will no doubt enjoy it, while other people will probably not mind the tracks when they no doubt appear in various luxury car commercials in the future. Oh, wait a minute… Moby released a new album recently, too, didn’t he? Well, I guess you can scratch the car commercials, but still, in a time where shitty music is becoming more and more the status quo, Michael Cretu continues to create top-notch atmospheric material that works well as background music to everything from sitting at the computer or relaxing to having a Sting-caliber tantric sex session. I personally can get the job done throughout the combined duration of Toto’s “Africa”, a-Ha’s “Take on Me” and Prince’s version of “Nothing Compares 2 U”, but that’s just me.
