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Enigma music biography continued...

The band consisted of composer/producer Frank Peterson and composer producer Michael Cretu, who added a bit of mystery to the outfit by going as Curly M.C. and F. Gregorian respectively. Later during the production of the tracks Fabrice Guitad was brought in to assist with lyrics, and he too adopted a new name: David Fairstein. Enigma also featured Cretu's wife, Sandra, on vocals, while British-born Louisa Stanley intoned all the spoken passages. This musical experiment resulted in the controversial single called Sadeness, which grew from an underground club-hit into a massive global success selling millions of copies. The theme of the Marquis de Sade and the mystery surrounding the group's members only served to make the band even more popular. With the single's astounding success, Peterson and Cretu's goal was to follow it as quickly as possible afterwards with a full-length album. In this way, the 1991 release MCMXC a.D. turned into an extended version of Sadeness, with tracks flowing into the next with themes that would reprise and adapt.
The group was unmasked when a court-case was leveled against the group by a German choir claiming copyright infringement for sampling the choir's chants without permission. The case was dismissed though as the chants were considered to be in the public domain. Enigma's groundbreaking use of samples and chants, both ethnic and religious, opposite a remarkable use of technological instruments was soon copied by other groups including Deep Forest, Sacred Spirit and Delerium After going their separate ways in 1991, Cretu and Peterson never talked or met with one another again, although Cretu continued work on his existing projects, including Enigma. The Cross Of Changes was the sequel to Enigma's debut album and spawned the hit-single Return To Innocence. This was followed at three-year intervals by Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi! and The Screen Behind The Mirror. Although the group never reached their previous level of success, they are credited with establishing the genre that would later be known as 'mood music' garnering legions of fans.