Enigma - A Posteriori (Liberty/EMI)

Despite reaching his sixth album as Enigma, no review of Micheal Cretu’s ambient/pop crossover ever fails to mention his inaugural hit, 1990’s Sadness Part 1. But at least this reviewer can start by saying how I couldn’t stand it! The chant/beats mash-up, the female vocal… I found nothing original or exciting in it at all. What I did love, was his minor 1993 hit Return To Innocence (like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan meets Public Enemy) and 1996’s even more minor album Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi! (one of the few enjoyable dance albums released that year).

This one is much less varied than any previous effort. Cretu has got some great Euphoria-style sounds going on, but little else. I can’t decide whether it’s all blissfully chilled out, or just lacklustre. Most tracks are instrumental and few - save for the finale, Goodbye Milky Way - lack the emotional charge that Cretu has always managed to add into the ambience.

As an aside, this is the first promo CD I’ve seen with the individual reviewer’s name printed both on the cover and actual disc, which means that music piracy is about to meet a new, major hurdle and that the nabbing of moral-free reviewers is about to become quite a spectator sport for eBay-watchers!

Ian North - My Girlfriend’s Dead (Repressed)

Ian North was a punk rock fall-out who got inspired by Kraftwerk and combined a newfound love of synths with dirty, grimy guitar pop. Not a million miles away from, or rather a US version of, The Gadgets or most of Some Bizarre’s label roster from 1980.

As such Ian North’s UK counterpart was, in a way, Matt Johnson who was developing a similar lo-fi male solo + synths/guitars/drum box style. But where Johnson’s lyrics were heavy weight – referencing Hezbollah as far back as 1989 – North’s were shallow. He had some great synth sounds and the drum box is as gritty as ever, but they’re let down by songs about girlfriends being models, girlfriends being on the front of magazines, and girlfriends being the “jet set.”

On the plus side, it’s extremely well packaged and comes as the second release on Cherry Red’s new Repressed imprint. So if you want to hear who both Talking Heads and The Ramones played alongside at CBGBs in 1980, then give this a try. But don’t expect poetry.