u/workingItAllOutStill

I realise I’m last to the party on this one. This last couple of weeks I’ve been listening non-stop to Karma by Delerium. I love it soooo much. I have owned the album for a number of years, and I recall being very unimpressed by it the first time I heard it so I just never felt the urge to play it again.

However, desperately awaiting E9, I decided to listen to it again. I am now obsessed. Every track amazing. I’d say as solid as the first 3 Enigma albums (I love subsequent Enigma albums too, but I feel there are often so skippers on most post E3 albums).

What’s curious is this album is clearly trying to get in on the mass appeal of pop-New Age brought about by Enigma and Deep Forest (I think actually some of the precise same Deep Forest samples are used too). The thing is, they execute it so well though, showing they really have skill.

This got me thinking. What album recommendations can we share for Enigma sounding albums?

(Please no Enigmatic recommendations!).

One of my closest friends whom is a great guy but struggling with life at the moment (and has been for some time) really irritates me with the way he communicates. The communication I’m particularly referring to is usually by text, although not exclusively so.

I feel he regularly uses inauthentic emotional niceties, whenever I say I have a minor problem he’s always ‘is there anything I can do?’, we don’t live close to each other, I live with my partner anyway who could help and I’m only saying I have a cold. He’ll be all like ‘oh I’m sorry to hear you’re going through that at the moment’, and I’m thinking ‘bro chill’. He has this strange habit of, asking me if I’m doing ‘fun things’ despite the fact that it’s a random Tuesday morning and I’m at work. Or, I was immobile due to surgery and he’s asking if I’m getting out enjoying the weather. And then there’s the constant links and mindless stuff on social media that he sends me, and his overuse of reacting with love heart emojis despite the fact that the comment really doesn’t require that sort of response.

Then for the irl comms which is generally much better, but still at times pisses me off. Like, he feels patronised and reacts to such feelings so easily. Often I (and I feel people generally) cite or describe something to motivate some subsequent statement, but during such citing of reference points he interrupts frequently saying ‘yes, I know that. I know. I know. I know’. I’m not under the impression I’m informing him of something, I’m just citing for references sake. I have considered if my tone is patronising, but no one else ever reacts like this with me. Additionally, he’s also in therapy and he sometimes hints that I should be too. He’s been in it for years and has spent thousands on it, all in my opinion with no improvement, and I’m fairly happy in life and don’t have any desire or need for it. He acts as though he’s enlightened because he is having therapy while in his view, I need it too but I’m not having it.

I did once approach the text comms problems once after a few drinks. I barely scratched the surface with saying what I thought and I could tell he was hurt by it so I didn’t continue.

Do you think I’m being unreasonable and pedantic, or is this stuff important in friendships?

So following on from a really interesting thread on most enigma sounding Sandra songs, is anyone aware of Cretu remixing other peoples work? I don’t mean side projects like Trance Music Airwaves, but where Cretu has been commissioned to remix someone else’s work?

A recent post on this Enigma sub posted about Sandra’s I Need Love. As someone unfamiliar with Sandra’s work (she never really broke the UK) it was such a treat to come across what essentially sounded like another Enigma song! If I’m not mistaken, it also has Cretu’s vocals on it.

So this got me thinking, which other songs by Sandra sound like Enigma?

My boss, whom recruited me, is an alright-ish guy. He can be ruthless, but seems to like me and has always been ok with me. Professionally I respect him, but he has a few weird social issues. Meetings between us tend to be him talking at me with minimal opportunities for me to get a word in, and generally if you’re talking about something he’s not interested in, he completely shuts down and doesn’t even maintain a pretence to be interested.

The main issue I have is his expectations that colleagues socialise with him. He usually ties this into work so it’s not just socialising for the sake of it. So, clients over require dinner and drinks, and he regularly looks for opportunities to visit clients at other parts of the country and also abroad.

He’s a northern, red-blooded guy, and I’ve heard him make jokes about people who don’t drink. I drink, and love a nice meal, but I’m also fairly health conscious so I prefer to ‘expend’ this unhealthy behaviour with friends and people whose relationships count to me.

So, do you think it’s acceptable to take a step back from out of hours work socialising, and if so, how do I navigate this? Or alternatively, does what I’ve said suggest the problem is me and I should just be willing to take part more?

I know it’s a daft question, but if you literally aren’t allowed more than one enigma album, which would you choose, and why? I think my favourite is A Posteriori. I keep coming back to it. Sometimes I listen to the whole thing in a daze and I float in and out of consciousness. It’s such a different album to the rest of the Enigma cannon, for a start off it’s the only album without the ‘welcome…’ intro. I think he really pushed himself with this album for something different. Unlike almost ever other Enigma album, I don’t feel there are any bad tracks (I love every album but also every album has one or two stinkers on it!). But not A Posteriori; its sound is so tight, so coherent. I few times after having surgery, just lying in bed listening to this gem of an album has shown me there is beauty in the world. I adore it.

So, which is your sole favourite, and why?