Born in communist Romania in 1957, Michael Cretu discovered music early on, studying the piano and classical music in Bucharest, and then in Paris at eleven years old. At 18, he moved to Germany, graduating the Academy of Music in Frankfurt.
Remaining in Germany after his graduation, he went on to work as a session musician, even managing to record the keyboards for Boney M’s hit “The Rivers of Babylon”. He also met Peter Cornelius, and they started a project together, Sound Union.
In the following years, he collaborated with artists like Hubert Kah, Mike Oldfield, Peter Schilling, Jens Gad. All this while releasing three solo albums, one better than the other, culminating with the release of one of the best 80’s pop songs, “Samurai”, in 1985.
While being busy with all this stuff, he somehow managed to have the time to meet Sandra Ann Lauer, marry her, and to work as writer, producer and background vocalist for Sandra’s albums starting 1985.
And is if things didn’t look very complicated for Curly MC, as Mr. Cretu called himself back in the day, in response to pushes from Mike Oldfield, who was impressed by his studio production skills and musical ideas, Michael started in 1988 the project Enigma, along with Fabrice Cuitad, and Frank Peterson. Cretu’s style of mixing a variety of musical genres, samples and sounds was very unusual to the ears of the listening public at the time, and led to him being described as an “alchemist in sound”. Having Cretu’s creative mastermind behind along with the great Cuitad’s and Peterson’s, Sandra’s voice on the foreground, and collaborations with great artists, like Peter Cornelius, Jens Gad, Andru Donalds, Enigma’s success doesn’t look like chance, but the result of enormous creative forces put together.
Years have passed by, Michael and Sandra split up, but they remained friends, continuing musical collaborations. Time is not a good friend to anyone, but Curly MC seems to not lose his magic touch. The latest Enigma albums were very good, culminating with the release of the eight album, “The Fall Of A Rebel Angel”, which gets close to the roots of the first album, MCMXC a.D., both in terms of sound and how fucking smashing it sounds. It even has a “Sadeness Part II” which is worth of the name and legacy of the original, along with “Mother”, both featuring Anggun, and “Amen”, which is one of the best Enigma tracks ever.
Curly MC is still here and it’s hitting it hard. <3
