Let the rhythm be your guiding light
March 13, 2018 5:39 PM Subscribe
Michael Cretu didn't quite know what he was getting into when he turned into Curly M.C. and in 1990 released Enigma - MCMXC a.D [YT album, ~40m] Cassette Side A: The Voice Of Enigma, Principles Of Lust (Sadeness, Find Love, Sadeness Reprise) [The Voice Of Enigma video, Principles Of Lust video], Callas Went Away [video]
Cassette Side B: Mea Culpa [video], The Voice & The Snake, Knocking On Forbidden Doors [The Voice & The Snake video, Knocking On Forbidden Doors video], (Way To Eternity, Hallelujah, The Rivers of Belief) [video]
Cassette Side B: Mea Culpa [video], The Voice & The Snake, Knocking On Forbidden Doors [The Voice & The Snake video, Knocking On Forbidden Doors video], (Way To Eternity, Hallelujah, The Rivers of Belief) [video]
This was to electronic music what white zinfandel was to wine: my entry point.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:03 PM on March 13, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:03 PM on March 13, 2018 [6 favorites]
I heard this SO MANY TIMES because a coworker who went on shift after me brought it in. It might have been his only CD at the time.
I haven't been tempted to listen to it ever again since those days.
posted by Foosnark at 6:05 PM on March 13, 2018
I haven't been tempted to listen to it ever again since those days.
posted by Foosnark at 6:05 PM on March 13, 2018
I was at a casino magic show last weekend, and was pleased to no end that a big, extended trick sequence had some remix of Principles of Lust as its soundtrack. The theatre was pounding with it, and there was smoke machines and pyro -- the works. I've never stopped loving this album (as silly as it can be), but man, those drums giving me heart murmurs this weekend? AWESOME.
posted by Capt. Renault at 6:05 PM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Capt. Renault at 6:05 PM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
Argh. The music is sexy as hell, but the Gregorian chant always left me feeling like some creepy monk was creeping up on me. Creepily. Kinda killed the rest of the sexy vibe.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 6:12 PM on March 13, 2018
posted by scaryblackdeath at 6:12 PM on March 13, 2018
A friend of mine told me this was her go-to sexytimes album in high school.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:27 PM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:27 PM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
Just the memory of the music was enough to make the hair on my arms stir and rise. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
posted by ninazer0 at 8:16 PM on March 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by ninazer0 at 8:16 PM on March 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
Sexytimes indeed. x1,000,000
Lots of sexy times.
posted by ZakDaddy at 9:16 PM on March 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
Lots of sexy times.
posted by ZakDaddy at 9:16 PM on March 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
Oh man! I hated it then and I hate it now! I tried to like it. I bought the damn thing and listened to it a bunch of times, with candles and special someones. It just didn't take. I concede that it was new and different and I can definitely understand why it was attractive to so many. But not to me. I grew up in a household that was filled with classical music of all stripes. You wanna talk about ambient? Classical. You want beats? Classical. Chanting? Classical.
Give me ambient techno instead, like the Orb. Or "New Age" stuff like Clannad. Or Enya.
Either way, good on Mr. Cretu for hopefully making his millions, creating a new genre and possibly help bring a large number of babies into the world. Not too many musical artists can claim that.
posted by ashbury at 9:59 PM on March 13, 2018
Give me ambient techno instead, like the Orb. Or "New Age" stuff like Clannad. Or Enya.
Either way, good on Mr. Cretu for hopefully making his millions, creating a new genre and possibly help bring a large number of babies into the world. Not too many musical artists can claim that.
posted by ashbury at 9:59 PM on March 13, 2018
As an aside, their greatest hits album, "Love, Sensuality and Devotion", is actually a great album and introduction to Enigma.
And yes, it is also good for sexy times.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 3:36 AM on March 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
And yes, it is also good for sexy times.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 3:36 AM on March 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
For me this was a good thing to play in a darkened auditorium before starting the trailers, and generally useless for almost anything else. But I sure as hell owned it.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:04 AM on March 14, 2018
posted by aspersioncast at 5:04 AM on March 14, 2018
As we've done this one before, I'll link to one of my earlier comments on the topic.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:14 AM on March 14, 2018
posted by octobersurprise at 6:14 AM on March 14, 2018
My first ever CD!!! I actually bought two CDs on that first trip - "MCMXC AD" and the Moody Blues "Days of Future Passed". I am smugly proud that those were my first two...not New Kids on the Block like the rest of my peers. I still listen to both of my first CDs regularly.
posted by Elly Vortex at 7:12 AM on March 14, 2018
posted by Elly Vortex at 7:12 AM on March 14, 2018
The go-to sexytimes soundtrack of a former partner. Can’t listen to it now without guiltily feeling like I’m cheating on my spouse. Still, I don’t miss it as much as I miss Bel Canto.
posted by panglos at 8:25 AM on March 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by panglos at 8:25 AM on March 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
No Enigma post is complete without a mention of what I consider to be their lesser-known but more sophisticated* peer: Deep Forest.
* Relatively, of course.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:45 AM on March 14, 2018 [4 favorites]
* Relatively, of course.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:45 AM on March 14, 2018 [4 favorites]
Also, don't forget eRa, which was some guy in France repeating the formula some six years later, also to considerable success.
posted by acb at 11:09 AM on March 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by acb at 11:09 AM on March 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
Does anyone else have a weird connection between this and Age of Empires, Age of Kings? A few years back, I listened to some Enigma and I noticed a rhythm that was present in the OST. I actually emailed the composer of the OST to ask if he had sampled Enigma, or if they had both sampled the same thing. You can hear the rhythm here at 0:12.
It's been so long though, I can't recall the song. Does this rhythm bring anything up for anyone?
posted by shenkerism at 11:38 AM on March 14, 2018
It's been so long though, I can't recall the song. Does this rhythm bring anything up for anyone?
posted by shenkerism at 11:38 AM on March 14, 2018
grumpybear, as soon as you mentioned Deep Forest, I immediately heard the opening lines from their first cd: "Somewhere, deep in the jungle are living some little men and women..." I may have listened to that cd more than a little bit back in the day.
posted by mogget at 12:01 PM on March 14, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by mogget at 12:01 PM on March 14, 2018 [3 favorites]
Oh the memmories... I got introduced to this by my then roomate who was an "exotic dancer." It was what all the ladies at her club were telling the DJ to play for their feature dances.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 12:28 PM on March 14, 2018
posted by WalkerWestridge at 12:28 PM on March 14, 2018
I put the Platinum Collection on at work today and after a while one of my coworkers turned t off because it was "coffee shop music."
No, I dunno either.
All I know is that for a brief, shining moment, it was 1994 again and MTV was airing the video with everything flying around in reverse. Up next, 120 Minutes.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 8:31 PM on March 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
No, I dunno either.
All I know is that for a brief, shining moment, it was 1994 again and MTV was airing the video with everything flying around in reverse. Up next, 120 Minutes.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 8:31 PM on March 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
I liked that Deep Forest song too, but it turns out that we were all just mainlining colonialism.
posted by No-sword at 10:44 PM on March 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by No-sword at 10:44 PM on March 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
I basically can't listen to Enigma anymore not just because of the nostalgia, but because pretty much every note and beat is etched permanently into my brain and it just doesn't even work as intended as music any more. I wish it could trigger any kind of nostalgia at all because there sure are some nice sexytimes with some very nice people I wouldn't mind remembering, but apparently I broke that button.
That and Deep Forest and Future Sound of London's Papua New Guinea.
Thankfully there's been a ton of moody, atmospheric beat-driven music like this made in the last 20 years, and I don't think many people outside of electronic/experimental music fans know about most of it.
If you like Enigma and dark, atmospheric beats in this kind of area - you really owe it to yourself to check out the artist Lorn. If I ever outgrow Lorn I'm probably a lost cause. Please just shoot me. If I'm ever stuck in a coma, bring in a bassbin or really loud headphones and play Lorn. If I don't wake up, just pull the plug.
Lorn's a bit like as if Boards of Canada grew up really spooky and gothic with a bass/trap/witch house twist - but with deep ambient and music theory chops like Eno or Bill Laswell. But dark and corrupted like Coil or other experimental, yet often prettier and more delicate than Lusine.
And, well Lorn predates witch house and trap by a decade or two, and has likely influenced newer witch house, trap and glitch, not to mention dubstep. Lorn pretty much invented all those dark, tweaky, beat-heavy sounds, but without the boring in-your-face annoying boyishness of cheap dubstep.
Lorn makes some of the deepest bass and hardest, deepest, slowest beats in the industry. They've been in my playlists for decades now. Just about any time I play them around anyone that likes dark, moody music with a deep, groovy breakbeat - their reaction is almost always "Ok, who the hell is this and why haven't I heard this before?"
It's Lorn. It's always Lorn. Lorn has been my secret weapon for downtempo/bass/chillout music for nearly twenty years now. Lorn is like an musical bottle of old balsamic vinegar - deeply rich, velvety and a little can go a long way. You can put Lorn away for years and come back to it and it's even better than the first time. Or you just give in and try to drink it straight from the bottle. And if it's not Lorn, it's Plaid.
Try Sharper Knives, SV_CHEATS 0, Until There Is No End, Ice, Anvil, or something less dark with Pause, or more atmospheric with Entangled. Or perhaps one of Lorn's better known tracks, Acid Rain. (WARNING: Many Lorn videos are disturbing or NSFW)
And if you like this kind of thing, here are some other random names you should know:
Plaid (ESPECIALLY PLAID, OMFG), Richard H. Kirk, Ceephax (Yes, that is a new ceephax track, you aren't tripping), Pete Namlook, Boards of Canada, Ulrich Schnauss, Tycho, Lusine, Com Truise, Casino vs. Japan, Thievery Corporation, Massive Attack and many more. (The links included are great jumping off points to browse and explore.)
posted by loquacious at 12:50 AM on March 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
That and Deep Forest and Future Sound of London's Papua New Guinea.
Thankfully there's been a ton of moody, atmospheric beat-driven music like this made in the last 20 years, and I don't think many people outside of electronic/experimental music fans know about most of it.
If you like Enigma and dark, atmospheric beats in this kind of area - you really owe it to yourself to check out the artist Lorn. If I ever outgrow Lorn I'm probably a lost cause. Please just shoot me. If I'm ever stuck in a coma, bring in a bassbin or really loud headphones and play Lorn. If I don't wake up, just pull the plug.
Lorn's a bit like as if Boards of Canada grew up really spooky and gothic with a bass/trap/witch house twist - but with deep ambient and music theory chops like Eno or Bill Laswell. But dark and corrupted like Coil or other experimental, yet often prettier and more delicate than Lusine.
And, well Lorn predates witch house and trap by a decade or two, and has likely influenced newer witch house, trap and glitch, not to mention dubstep. Lorn pretty much invented all those dark, tweaky, beat-heavy sounds, but without the boring in-your-face annoying boyishness of cheap dubstep.
Lorn makes some of the deepest bass and hardest, deepest, slowest beats in the industry. They've been in my playlists for decades now. Just about any time I play them around anyone that likes dark, moody music with a deep, groovy breakbeat - their reaction is almost always "Ok, who the hell is this and why haven't I heard this before?"
It's Lorn. It's always Lorn. Lorn has been my secret weapon for downtempo/bass/chillout music for nearly twenty years now. Lorn is like an musical bottle of old balsamic vinegar - deeply rich, velvety and a little can go a long way. You can put Lorn away for years and come back to it and it's even better than the first time. Or you just give in and try to drink it straight from the bottle. And if it's not Lorn, it's Plaid.
Try Sharper Knives, SV_CHEATS 0, Until There Is No End, Ice, Anvil, or something less dark with Pause, or more atmospheric with Entangled. Or perhaps one of Lorn's better known tracks, Acid Rain. (WARNING: Many Lorn videos are disturbing or NSFW)
And if you like this kind of thing, here are some other random names you should know:
Plaid (ESPECIALLY PLAID, OMFG), Richard H. Kirk, Ceephax (Yes, that is a new ceephax track, you aren't tripping), Pete Namlook, Boards of Canada, Ulrich Schnauss, Tycho, Lusine, Com Truise, Casino vs. Japan, Thievery Corporation, Massive Attack and many more. (The links included are great jumping off points to browse and explore.)
posted by loquacious at 12:50 AM on March 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
And, well Lorn predates witch house and trap by a decade or two, and has likely influenced newer witch house, trap and glitch, not to mention dubstep.
Lorn is great but his earliest release on Discogs is from 2006 - did he have another alias before that? I became aware of him as a Brainfeeder/Low End Theory guy, as that stuff was on the rise - more or less contemporaneous to dubstep getting big globally.
posted by atoxyl at 5:05 PM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
Lorn is great but his earliest release on Discogs is from 2006 - did he have another alias before that? I became aware of him as a Brainfeeder/Low End Theory guy, as that stuff was on the rise - more or less contemporaneous to dubstep getting big globally.
posted by atoxyl at 5:05 PM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm way, way late to the party but...
In the '90s I used to DJ an...event... for 12 hour shifts. The managers insisted I play Enigma at least once every hour. I was able to insert Delerium's Semantic Spaces (yes, Delirium, one of many Front Line Assembly side projects, who later became a worldwide sensation with 'Silence.' Yet another on the "if you like Enigma you'll also like..." list). There was a rumor that Semantic Spaces was intended as a parody of the first Enigma album but I don't know how true that is.
posted by rednikki at 4:08 AM on March 16, 2018
In the '90s I used to DJ an...event... for 12 hour shifts. The managers insisted I play Enigma at least once every hour. I was able to insert Delerium's Semantic Spaces (yes, Delirium, one of many Front Line Assembly side projects, who later became a worldwide sensation with 'Silence.' Yet another on the "if you like Enigma you'll also like..." list). There was a rumor that Semantic Spaces was intended as a parody of the first Enigma album but I don't know how true that is.
posted by rednikki at 4:08 AM on March 16, 2018
Oh man FSOL. I got into them through the Cool World soundtrack, which was an amazing techno primer. That and Amiga MODS. All of which I had to keep secret from my friends because electronic music was, to put it lightly, not cool.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:18 AM on March 16, 2018
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:18 AM on March 16, 2018
Lorn is great but his earliest release on Discogs is from 2006 - did he have another alias before that?
No, no, you're not confused. I am. Embarrassingly I'm living up to my username. Apparently I just had a massive old geriatric raver moment and I'm mixing memories. Likely of some non-existant mix of Plaid, Low and something else dark but beat-oriented.
And, y'know, don't take my enthusiasm about outgrowing Lorn too literally either. I've outgrown a lot of music I thought I wouldn't. I can't remember the last time I listened to any Boards of Canada, honestly, and there was a while where I would scarcely listen to anything else.
But, anyway, yeah, there's a ton of dark, groovy, beat oriented music out there, both new and old. Sure, not much of it is as pop-friendly as Enigma or Deep Forest, but obviously I personally think that's for the best.
I've also been randomly getting into whatever is loosely called witch house. When I first heard about the genre I thought the name was kind of a joke, and like "Wait, didn't we already do that with Coil or Psychick TV and stuff?"
But, no. There's all this really cool, dark atmospheric stuff all over YouTube. It's more like bass music and hip hop finally met goth, industrial, darkwave and ambient. It's not straight trap either - too pretty and femme for that. And it's not fun and/or hypersexualized booty bass at all, either. ( n u a g e s is a name I can throw out there. )
posted by loquacious at 11:41 AM on March 16, 2018
No, no, you're not confused. I am. Embarrassingly I'm living up to my username. Apparently I just had a massive old geriatric raver moment and I'm mixing memories. Likely of some non-existant mix of Plaid, Low and something else dark but beat-oriented.
And, y'know, don't take my enthusiasm about outgrowing Lorn too literally either. I've outgrown a lot of music I thought I wouldn't. I can't remember the last time I listened to any Boards of Canada, honestly, and there was a while where I would scarcely listen to anything else.
But, anyway, yeah, there's a ton of dark, groovy, beat oriented music out there, both new and old. Sure, not much of it is as pop-friendly as Enigma or Deep Forest, but obviously I personally think that's for the best.
I've also been randomly getting into whatever is loosely called witch house. When I first heard about the genre I thought the name was kind of a joke, and like "Wait, didn't we already do that with Coil or Psychick TV and stuff?"
But, no. There's all this really cool, dark atmospheric stuff all over YouTube. It's more like bass music and hip hop finally met goth, industrial, darkwave and ambient. It's not straight trap either - too pretty and femme for that. And it's not fun and/or hypersexualized booty bass at all, either. ( n u a g e s is a name I can throw out there. )
posted by loquacious at 11:41 AM on March 16, 2018
Oh it's alright - 2007-2011 or so ("real" UK dubstep through FlyLo and co. through Clams Casino and the first Weeknd mixtape) was a big time for me so as much as I was high all the time back then I just remember a few things.
posted by atoxyl at 12:44 PM on March 16, 2018
posted by atoxyl at 12:44 PM on March 16, 2018
But, no. There's all this really cool, dark atmospheric stuff all over YouTube. It's more like bass music and hip hop finally met goth, industrial, darkwave and ambient. It's not straight trap either - too pretty and femme for that. And it's not fun and/or hypersexualized booty bass at all, either. ( n u a g e s is a name I can throw out there. )
yeah I feel like all of that stuff continued in some form from what I was into in 2011 but the genre boundaries got really blurry, especially when the vaporwave thing came into it
I mean, I like this and this and more - I just have a hard time keeping track of what's what now.
posted by atoxyl at 12:51 PM on March 16, 2018
yeah I feel like all of that stuff continued in some form from what I was into in 2011 but the genre boundaries got really blurry, especially when the vaporwave thing came into it
I mean, I like this and this and more - I just have a hard time keeping track of what's what now.
posted by atoxyl at 12:51 PM on March 16, 2018
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Highly suggest Principles of Lust.
posted by CrowGoat at 5:45 PM on March 13, 2018 [2 favorites]