The Screen Behind the Mirror

1	The Gate 2:04
2	Push the Limits 6:26
3	Gravity of Love 3:58
4	Smell of Desire 4:57
5	Modern Crusaders 3:50
6	Traces (Light and Weight) 4:11
7	The Screen Behind the Mirror 3:58
8	Endless Quest 3:06
9	Camera Obscura 1:27
10	Between Mind & Heart 4:09
11	Silence Must Be Heard 5:19

Barnes & Noble

With the 1991 hit "Sadeness," from the album MCMXC A.D., Enigma mixed Gregorian chants with 20th-century dance beats, sneaking new-age atmosphere in the back door of nightclubs worldwide and generating a multiplatinum hit. The followup, 1994's CROSS OF CHANGES, enjoyed similar success by blending Arabic melodies and Native American chants into a slicker, more pop sound. With THE SCREEN BEHIND THE MIRROR, Michael Cretu -- the 39-year-old Romanian who records under the Enigma moniker -- continues in a similar vein, making synth-heavy dance-trance for a new-age culture that wants it both ways. Imbuing his music with modern mysticism and timeless rhythms, Cretu counters pipe organs with electric guitars and juxtaposes ambient interludes with bursts of choral splendor. "Gravity of Love" anchors ethereal vocals with spacey loops and clubby beats while "Camera Obscura" pairs recorders and tribal drums and "Modern Crusaders" rocks to a Peter Gabrielesque world vibe. Throughout the album, Cretu drops samples of Carl Orff's choral epic "Carmina Burana" to recapitulative, epic effect. Like a Loreena McKennitt for the dance floor, a Dead Can Dance for the new millennium, Enigma is postmodern new age for an electronica nation. --Peter Rutter

All Music Guide

Enigma's fourth album The Screen Behind the Mirror continues Michael Cretu's explorations into ambient new age, Gregorian chant, world music, and dance rhythms. Cretu's vocals play a more prominent role than on earlier Enigma albums, which, unfortunately, often detracts from the songs' other diverse elements -- which include church bells, Middle Eastern and European choirs, sensuous female vocals, and a wide array of ethnic percussion and instruments. The album's pieces are mixed together continuously and are united thematically by samples and reinterpretations of Orff's "O Fortuna" and other material from Carmina Burana, giving songs like "Endless Quest," "The Gate," and "Smell of Desire" a flowing, cohesive feel. Though it doesn't reveal significant growth or change in Enigma's work, The Screen Behind the Mirror will please fans of the group's other atmospheric works. Heather Phares