If a collection of music in this century is a reflection of its moods, this one is a close approximation. “Mirage” in particular exemplifies how difficult it is becoming to discern what is real from what is imagined. The skillful and yet unfettered imagination brings about real things with a speed that is unmatched, and usually what is impossible today becomes a stark-deafening reality tomorrow.
“Oceans of Illusion” seems to delight in unreality but one could easily form bodily patterns that match or succumb to its rhythms, as modern dance can be both resonant with and antagonistic to musical themes.
“Vital Doubts” celebrates doubt as a fundamental emotion of the twenty-first century: it picks up the tempo as if to pay homage to it.
“Curtains Over Eyes”: if modern experience is like a drape, to look behind it is not only necessary but inevitable. The temptation cannot be overcome. The background includes a bouncing ball rhythm, which drops with metronomic uniformity and then ends abruptly. This piece is proclaiming loud and clear that there is nothing periodic in this century: one will always be fooled by any seeming regularities.
“Sorrowful Truth”: Here the music is seduced by gravity. It is pulled down to earth just like the truth always is: raw, naked, and difficult to accept at times, but always beautiful just like the melodies in this piece.
Much more malevolent is “Deceived”: the music twists the psyche just like lies always do, however they are crafted and whatever their magnitude.
“Real Fantasia” is a temporary diversion from the superposition of monotony and exhilaration that so characterizes modern existence.
Whispers wake the listener in “Consciousness” and stay steady throughout. They are gentle nudges that however signal the burden/joy of decision-making and its consequences for the conscious being.
“Diversion” from chosen paths is the rule rather than the exception today: this piece pushes the listener to accepting this stark realization.
“Echoes From East” again is a reminder that repetitiveness is an anathema and an impossibility in the twenty-first century. There is so much activity, so much work and play, that they become indistinguishable.
After a long silence, Rixa White introduced Silentaria, an Electronic New Age musical project, in late 2010.
Silentaria is a made-up name with two parts of “Silent” and “aria”, indicating a quite hymn or tune. The combination is pointing to the silence of human inner side as a temple of silence which is the source of every sound. The questions are “What does Silentaria music signify?” and “How does the music communicate with its listeners?”.
Although Silentaria music is categorized in New Age, Rixa’s music is neither therapeutic nor related to any belief system at all. Tracks like “Lament of Being”, “The Ruined Innocence”, “What’s Real?” and “Vital Doubts” bring up the suspicion that this music is a kind of revenge against usual soft titles like the most relaxing New Age music in the universe.
Silentaria’s multi-dimensional fusion music benefits from emotional melodies and diverse instruments and devices to create multi-layered themes with cinematic atmospheres, progressive orchestrations, polyphonic harmonies and hypnotic rhythms. This emphasizes elements of mystery, sorrow, epic, rebellion and energy, alike a melody of the whole and releases the inner frustration to embrace infinite possibilities unfolded from emptiness. It brings Rixa’s vision to mind which is inspired by the Wholeness and Emptiness philosophy and manifests in Silentaria’s slogan: “The Voice of Emptiness”.
Beside aforementioned elements, Silentaria music encourages a pure experience of life. It insists on facing the life burden as it is and not pretending that everything is fine outside while suffering inside. By this way, we do not need to hide our true-self and stop throwing ourselves into good mood. Rixa White believes that music can be a cure, if we let ourselves into a pure experience beyond our conceptual beliefs, observe the trap instead of ignoring it and become a witness, a Silent Witness.
The last not the least, it might be impossible to get caught in usual New Age music monotony while listening to Silentaria music. It turns from soothing instrumental (Farewell, Sorrowful Truth) into cinematic Epic (One Last Quest, Return of the Lost) and from energizing Electronic (Beyond Destiny, Real Fantasia) into thundering Rock (Deceived, Curtains over Eyes). But it is quite easy to surround yourself by this hybrid music that demands your sub-conscious for exploring strange sonic shores.
“There are Oceans, Endless Oceans, Oceans of Illusion.”
“Oceans of Illusion” , the 3rd track in “What’s Real?” album, is the featured track of this week. This article gives a brief musical and conceptual understanding of the track.
For detailed information about “Oceans of Illusion” click here .
Music
“Oceans of Illusion” has been produced in Electronic New Age genre with elements of ambience. The first four parts of this instrumental track are low-beat, containing mellow and soft Classic instruments and Strings harmonized with Electronic Synths, while the final part starting from 04:32 mark is an up-beat piece and fades out in Guitar and Flute with drums in background.
Following the album pattern, “Oceans of Illusion” points to the blind beliefs in unreal man-made concepts. The illusive atmosphere of the track demonstrates an awakening moment to explore the depth of illusion that widely surrounds us.
The track position in album storyline emphasizes the fact that only by constant questioning “What’s Real?” (second track in album), we may see the well-kept truth.
Concept
A descriptive meaning for the word “Illusion” is a distortion in reality, shared by most people (Wikipedia). However, from a point of view, illusion can be interpreted as a belief about a person, a thing or a concept that is blind and different from reality.
Media frequently injects blind beliefs about people and things into our mind. So, the new beliefs implant themselves in our mind particularly when it is hard or impossible to test or experience them.
Gradually, we consider these beliefs as truth and never challenge them. And the more essential they are, the more unreal decisions we make during shaping our lives, our relationships and our characters and this ends up in an unreal life.
Another type of illusions is general belief in man-made concepts. Concepts like perfection, wealth, power, success, social position, possession, becoming someone, safety and security, … are too popular to doubt them. In spite of the necessity of these man-made concepts for a social life, they cannot help us in developing an inner-relationship with ourselves and we remain alien to our true-self.
Initially, our parents and later schools, teachers, friends and media multiply the list of illusions. Even we ourselves extend it by implanting some new illusions to our unconscious belief system.
We have breathed and believed in these illusions for so long that questioning them becomes a challenge of a life time. They control our decisions, interests, relationships and even our last will and testament. We are the slaves of our own illusions and they actually rule our lives.
“A fish cannot be aware of the ocean, before jumping up out of water.“
Only few people are aware of the illusions that shape their lives, as its trace cannot be easily found. But we all will face the choice between what is right and what is easy. Although drowning in illusion is inevitable, when the time comes, we can at least jump up out of the ocean, even for a moment to become aware of it.
Conclusion
“Oceans of Illusion” is a sad story but not a disappointing or pessimistic one.
It is an invitation to observe the illusion, even for a moment.
I don’t often listen to new age or electronica, but Silentaria’s WHAT’S REAL? has really grown on me. It might not be super accessible to begin with; it’s a (largely) wordless concept album that focuses on a lost being’s birth and subsequent questioning of the fabric of the world around it. The self-taught Rixa White has composed 11 dense tracks of electronic new age goodness.
The opening track “Mirage” begins with the wail of a synthesizer — it sounds like a cry, not unlike a whale’s croon. From the get-go WHAT’S REAL? sounds somewhat alien, but there’s something about it that still feels human about it all. The album does a great job of combining conventional chord shifts and scales with exotic-sounding flourishes. “Mirage” sets a good tone for the album — it lets the listener know exactly what they are in for with WHAT’S REAL? The music here is really intricate, repeated listening will uncover hidden details that audiences may have missed out on the first (or fourth) time around. Silentaria’s compositions work really well in two important dimensions: the music is nice to have in the background. If listeners just want an album to work, study, or exercise to, WHAT’S REAL? works nicely. BUT, if listeners want an album they can pore over, pay close attention to, and navigate, the album works nicely on that front as well. It’s a balancing act that pays off well. The closing track, “Echoes from East,” provides a bit of a disappointing ending for the album — it does indeed sound foreign, but it ends by slowly fading out. I was expecting a grand exercise in catharsis, but it never quite came.
Rixa White set a lofty goal: the concept behind this album is one that is hard to convey. Perhaps too hard to convey in words, which may explain their absence. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel like the story played out necessarily through the music. There are a few moments when the listener is treated to words (the title track, and “Consciousness” for example), and these songs serve as good points of focus, but overall, I didn’t get much out of it. In addition to the dense concept, some of the instrumentation here might be hard to ignore — the mix and engineering is good, but some of the instruments sound a bit dated. The music works well, but I think some people might have issues with the 80’s style synthesizers.
Silentaria’s 2012 release is a solid piece of art: it straddles a fine line between alien and human, exotic and familiar. Standout tracks to sample: “Curtains Over Eyes,” and “What’s Real?” I would advise against downloading these tracks piecemeal — the album works best as a whole, and listening to only one track would seem to hamper the experience. If you love New Age music, WHAT’S REAL? is a must-listen. If, however, you have shied away from the genre, this album is a great place to start. WHAT’S REAL? is definitely worth your time.
Silentaria | An Electronic New Age musical project by Rixa White 