Andy Hughes-Enigma

[Garmard]

Andy,
as a lover of chill-out music i wonder whether you would know the answer to this question?
I bought my first chill-out album back in 1990 called Enigma and wondered if you'd know where Michael Cretu got his inspiration for Sadeness which i think is ingenious to say the least.
I was told you work on NME so i assumed you would know.

[andy-hughes]

Hi Garmard,

I do freelance for the NME occasionally, but i can't claim to know the inspiration for any musician.

I would suggest that Michael heard the Gregorian chant he used in the intro and redcognised the mystical impact it has, and had the inspration to place a trance beat under it, and see how it sounded. Wonderful is the simple answer.

As anyone who has ever listened to Magma (Steve 'interesting' Davis is a massive fan, and even financed a tour over her for them!) knows, French is an amazingly evocative language when put to music - just a couple of examples: Visage's 'Fade To Grey' and Eighth Wonder's 'I'm Not Scared' with Patsy kensit's breathy voice break (she speaks French fluently).

So, as with most great music, it's an idea from who-knows-where, developed and built into a wonderful track that millions of people enjoyed - including us.

[Garmard]

Thank you Andy once again.
Is Enigma put into the "New Age" category of music?

[andy-hughes]

I guess you could.

This desire to place music in 'boxes' is something peculiarly British - otrher cultures simply don't do this. When i was growing up (when dinosaurs roamed ...) if you liked 'progressive', you wouldn't like 'soul' and if you were a Mod, you couldn't like rock and roll because it was 'rocker' music.

Thankfully, most of these tribal trends have gone now, at least as far as adopting one genre preventing you from enjoying another! the media though still loves to stock bands in 'catagories' - even when they defy such narrow labelling.

For this reason, John Peel is sadly known as the champion of 'indie', which is nonsense. his ground-breaking attitude saw the first radio plays for bands as diverse as Tyranosaurus Rex, Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, plus his perenial and oft-played loves - Thin Lizzy and The Faces. That doesn't scratch the surface of the grime, punk, Mali, Brazlillian, Dutch etc. bands he championed, and not forgetting the ever-faithful Fall. I interviewed peel once, and i remember him saying that he simply cannot understand why not everyone adores The Fall as much as he does.

So - enjoy what you enjoy, ignore the labels!