An Ambient Beat for a Modern Heart

by: Kevin L. Nenstiel

Date: July 16, 2012

Composer Rixa White’s solo electronic extravaganza appears, at first blush, to have much in common with, Vangelis, Jon Anderson’s Yes, and other synthpop veterans. It’s certainly a nostalgic throwback. But Silentaria doesn’t merely mimic thirty-year-old pop icons; it also throws in an aggressive bass line that provides a fuller sound than first-wave synthpop ever enjoyed, bolstered with occasional dance floor rhythms and muscular mixed genre sounds.

On its website, Silentaria bills itself as “the Voice of Emptiness,” presumably in reference to Buddhist meditation techniques. But I’m not sure how well it lives up to that name. I mean that in a good way: this album has a very full, rich sound, making best use of its conventional and programmed instruments. It pushes Eastern pentatonic scales and Western staggered harmonies together in ways that, while not always surprising, are certainly never boring.

Like many such ambient music ensembles, Silentaria is essentially one man, and as much a triumph of engineering as musicality. Rixa White, a software entrepreneur, turned his attention to composing and recording in 2010, and this is his second album. Like those who paved the road he travels (Yanni and Kitaro come to mind), White uses his synthesizer to combine conventional piano composition and a programmed orchestra in a large, theatrical soundscape.

Silentaria’s music relies less on virtuosity and more on pattern recognition, as this style often does. But Silentaria is not satisfied to have its music permeate below the level of conscious recognition, in the best Hearts of Space tradition. Tracks like “Vital Doubts” and “Consciousness” have athletic pacing and driving percussion lines that demand to be heard. Even White’s softer compositions shift tempos and instrumentations enough to keep your attention hooked.

Then, when White has your attention, he upsets your expectations. Tracks like “Curtains Over Eyes” and “Real Fantasia” may sound like ordinary ambient music if you listen with only half an ear, but closer examination reveals unanticipated contrasts. Shakuhachi beneath skirling electric guitars; intricate symphonic orchestrations over pining wordless sighs. White’s compositions reward active listeners with curiosity enough to follow his changes.

White also makes well-considered use of samples. Sounds of weather, children playing, and animals in their habitat crop up at unexpected times, reminiscent of the pioneering work by acts like Mira Calix and Atom Heart. Even the human voices that peek through the wall of electronica come by way of White’s programming. I particularly appreciate that White can synth human voices without using that ubiquitous, tiresome AutoTune flutter we keep hearing everywhere.

And White also isn’t above a certain amount of winking irony. My favorite track, “Sorrowful Truth,” moves with great thoughtfulness, but nothing like the mournful plod the title implies. As it accelerates toward the end, throwing on playful woodwind hooks and humming wordless choir, we start to grasp White’s message: that when sorrow and truth come into competition, only one can triumph. Sorrow may be necessary, but truth is brimming with vitality and might.

I can’t pretend I have no problems with this album. Some of the tracks don’t live up to the high standards White sets himself. “Diversion,” for instance, is undercut by a cheesy beeping descant, an obvious composer’s fingerprint somewhere between a touch-tone phone and R2-D2. And the title track, one of the few with lyrics (and few enough it is), features a growling male voice demanding: “What’s real?” A female voice provides the answer every Beatles fan has already supplied: “Nothing is real.”

But these brief misfires do not set the tone for the entire album. On the whole, we can roll our eyes at such frankly ordinary choices in the odd deep album cut because the rest of the album has the power to carry us through. At least it tries, and tries harder than any five random pop confections. White’s smart orchestration and intricate programming result in a sound that is at once rooted in an electronic tradition, yet not so hidebound that it sounds the same as every other New Age drone we’ve all heard before.

Much ambient music sounds good for one or two tracks, but sticking with the artists over the length of an album can be difficult. As track mounts on track, they often reveal rhythms so unvarying that you could do Pilates with them and never miss a beat. Silentaria, however, has crafted an album that is emphatically not a soundtrack for jogging or vacuuming. Rixa White puts himself through hard changes, and expects you to join him on the journey.

Kevin L. Nenstiel

(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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“Breathing, Believing And Living”

A Musical, Mystical Voyage Through The Illusion

by: Brian E. Erland

Date: July 14, 2012

To be honest, I was initially skeptical about what lie in store for me within the musical universe of Rixa White and his electronic New Age musical project known as Silentaria. I guess I’m a little old fashioned and conventional because I don’t usually find myself listening to musicians who wear a featureless white mask, matching suit and speak of such nebulous topics as illusion, solitude and disappearing into emptiness.

On second thought allow me rephrase and clarify what I just said. It wasn’t the subject matter that I found disconcerting; I love the arcane and esoteric. Believe it or not, it was the mere presence of this white mask that elicited my concern. As a general rule I view visual props as an attempt to draw ones attention in one direction so as not to see what’s going on elsewhere. In this particular case I suspected the mask was being used as a device to draw the listener away from some flaw in the music. Needless to say I was prepared not to be deceived by such theatrics.

Now after listening to Silentaria’s `What’s Real?’ I’m please to share with all that my fears were unfounded and I loved all eleven pieces! Yes really, all eleven. To my way of thinking that’s pretty amazing, how often do you actually enjoy every cut on an album? I find that to be especially true within the genre of electronic music. There’s almost always one or two numbers that are too slow and boring, or a piece that tries to accelerate the pace a little and just goes way overboard and doesn’t fit at all.

Rixa White has successfully avoided those above mentioned pitfalls and brilliantly I might add. What awaits the listener is a subtly conceived voyage into, through and beyond the mundane world of illusion (or at least to its outer borders). Silentaria crosses over terrain where other travelers have successfully gone before; Kitaro, Vangelis, Steve Roach, Enigma and Def Punk (yes that’s right, Def Punk). But Rixa White’s music has a unique destination all its own and doesn’t linger long with those that came before. To be reminded of something old and familiar is comforting. To be aware of something new and different is exhilarating. Prepare yourself for a thrilling voyage and let the exploration that is Silentaria begin!

Brian E. Erland

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Truly some extraordinary sounds by Rixa White

by: Jim Chambers

Date: July 8, 2012

I’m old enough to remember the pop and rock music of the 1950s and 1960s, and I acknowledge that about half of my music CDs and downloads are from that era (or earlier). But the other half is an eclectic mix of sounds, including ambient, electronic, and easy listening. When Silentaria offered me the opportunity to review the “What’s Real?” album, I quickly agreed, since I don’t often have the chance to hear and review new contemporary music. With no idea what to expect, I played the eleven tracks on the album.

I have to say that this is extraordinary music. Much of the New Age music I hear is either too bland to hold my attention or too funky for my tastes. Not so with “What’s Real?”. I’m not a musician, so I’m not sure which, if any, of the instruments were real, and which were synthesized, but whatever the case, it works. Even to my relatively untrained ear, this is remarkably complex music, with the various sounds being woven together in a brilliant tapestry.

I enjoyed every track, but if I had to list my favorites, they would include:

“Mirage” – Beautiful music based around sounds that are reminiscent of the Humpback Whale songs (think “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”).

“What’s Real?” – Perhaps my favorite track, it has a rousing beat with barely audible whispers of voices trying to be heard. I can easily imagine hearing “What’s Real?” over the end credits for one of the superheroes films.

“Vital Doubts” – A spirited, driving beat that had me drumming on my computer desk and tapping my toes on the floor.

By all means listen to the 30-second samples on Amazon, but honestly, the brief snippets don’t begin to do justice to the music.

Jim Chambers

TOP 100 REVIEWER

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A musical expression of Wholeness and Emptiness

by: Grady Harp

Date: July 7, 2012

It is rare when artists devote their craft to answer universal questions. But that is precisely what Rixa White offers in WHAT’S REAL? The hour long experience created here is composed and executed by Rixa White – a self-taught pianist, keyboardist, composer and poet, and if ever there existed a merging of all of these aspects it is here, in this music, in this sensory seduction, and in posing answers (or lack of same) to the question we all ask of the Universe – what’s real?

White’s complex keyboard utilization creates orchestras, voices, layers of atmospheres that lift us above the new and transport us to a level of receptivity to bigger questions and leaves us satisfied that none of this is real: it is all an illusion which we mold to our needs and hopefully expand our perception of possibilities.

The art connected with Silentaria speaks to the same end: `The album cover image illustrates a fading shadow on fading water ripples in the dark which ends up to a dot. The shadow can be any creature diving into illusion. The fact that both shadow and reflection on the water not existing by themselves, emphasizes the concept that what we believe and experience may not be real.’ The track titles suggest the rest: Mirage, What’s Real?, Oceans of Illusion, Vital Doubts, Curtains Over Eyes, Sorrowful Truth, Deceived, Real Fantasia, Consciousness, Diversion, and Echoes from East.

Sit back, absorb, challenge your senses and refresh in asking the questions posed by WHAT’S REAL? This is one of the more successful albums of New Age Music around.

Grady Harp, July 12

HALL OF FAME TOP 50 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE

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