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What is Enigma? A band, a project, a state of mind, an attitude? Although people may be able to put a vague musical style to the name, it is a name well chosen. Information about Enigma is not that readily available but a bit of digging will reveal a Romanian musician called Michael Cretu and a long an intricate history. Cretu began playing piano at the age of five and has been involved in making unique albums, both as a solo musician and as a collaborator through out a long career. In 1990 after encouragement from Mike Oldfield, Cretu moved in a more ethereal direction and under the name of Enigma has been releasing music that defies being pigeonholed. In 2001 after over a decade of successful albums, a greatest hits was forthcoming under the title "Love, Sensuality, Devotion" or L.S.D.

But before we plunge headlong into this celebration of the bands finest moments, what sort of thing are we going to find there? Enigma remains a band that encroaches on many styles and yet sits comfortably in none. The men in suits who try to come up with catch all buzzwords and snappy phrases for purposes of advertising and reviewing are not yet able to concisely capture their essence. New Age is a term that is banded around a lot, but that just makes me think of recordings of whale noises and people called Miranda knitting green bobble hats and wearing no shoes. Easy Listening makes them sound like Perry Como and world music always makes me think of WOMAD festival and bands from Mongolia with unpronounceable names playing a two string horse fiddle. Really it's a hybrid of all of those genres and more. There is an element of dance to a lot of the beats but its not club music. The best thing is if I just wade right in and let the music explain itself to me, you however, will have to put up with my written interpretations.

The opening piece, "The Landing" is a gentle piano and keyboard wash and a spoken vocal that builds in a very Vangelis sort of way and gradually slides into the first real song on the album. "Turn Around" brings us into the world of enigma very gently. A rhythmic back beat forms the structure for some electronically affected vocals, soothing yet almost incomprehensible. Vocals in this place are another instrument, the words are not always important in themselves, the sounds and atmosphere that they create are. Because of that this is music that you don't have to concentrate on, the art of getting the most out of this type of music is to let it wash over you,

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