The album starts with a mellow track, “Mirage”, which is a low-beat track using no percussion, while hearing very illusive sounds coming from a very far distance.

It is followed by the title track, “What’s Real?”. This second track contains a dialog between a robot asking about reality and an angel who answers him. The double sided style of the music is ear catching as its beat is techno-like and melody and instruments are classic.

The 3rd track is “Oceans of Illusion” that uses a bunch of illusive sounds creating a warm oceanic atmosphere in each of its five sections.

“Vital Doubts” is the 4th track and one of the two techno tracks in the album. The main characteristic of this up-beat track is its non-repeating full-length melody that is performed by a kind and friendly sound coming from a combination of four digital strings and flutes.

“Curtains over Eyes”, the 5th track uses Electric Guitar and horn-like instruments combined with strings and sitars to create a heroic atmosphere.

“Sorrowful Truth” comes in the 6th place and is totally Violin-based followed by some mild epic-romantic harmonic background melodies. The chorus of the track is both sorrowful and soothing Perhaps all can be told about is sorrow, sorrow and more sorrows.

The 7th track is “Deceived”, the only Rock genre track in the album. Electric Guitar plays the main gear of the track but its combination with violins and strings makes a multi-style atmosphere. Human choir also emphasizes the spiritual atmosphere of the track. All four parts are related to each other as a whole story and rebellion and objection are lucidly encouraged in all parts.

The other electronic techno track appears in 8th place named “Real Fantasia”. Its melody is mainly a long repeated sentence with lots of non-repeated harmonic background melodies that projects a kind of happiness in a visionary Fantasia. Almost all sounds are electronic in this track.

In this album, “Consciousness”, the 9th one, is very special. Repeating the Consciousness word combined with metal-like percussions in the background recalls spiritual temples atmosphere. Its spiritual concept is brought up with a techno style and variable melodies performed by electronic instruments even Electric Guitars. The vocals are totally computer-generated human voices.

The 10th track is “Diversion” mainly having a modern Epic atmosphere in both its harmonic intro and main part by using Brass and Strings combined with background Pads and smart Basses.

”Echoes from East”, the 11th and last track, has a World genre and contains a variety of Middle Eastern melodies performed by Turkish, Persian and Arabic instruments and percussions.

Testimonials

“This is one of the more successful albums of New Age Music around.” — Grady Harp

“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?”… This is remarkably complex music, with the various sounds being woven together in a brilliant tapestry.” — J. Chambers

“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

“Silentaria’s latest offering WHAT’S REAL? is an intense, solo electronic music extravaganza that probes the nature of reality and the relationship between the inner and outer world of the human experience. A deep subject to be sure, but that is one of the benefits of the virtually wordless approach employed here by Rixa White. Mostly unconstrained from the limited meanings of words, White takes flight with his synthesizer and a host of other instruments and brings us along for the journey. And it does feel like a journey. The music is very cinematic – the tracks all seeming both different and the same in a way – much like a movie score, where one or two recurring themes is woven into a number of other variations on those themes that both advance the story from scene to scene and remind us of the big picture.” — Andrew H. Lee

“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.” —  Kevin L. Nenstiel

“The album does a great job of combining conventional chord shifts and scales with exotic-sounding flourishes… 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.” — T. A. Daniel

“This is a well-mixed collection of instrumentals, all of which are unique. … While there are listeners that may find all synthesized music to sound the same, this album proves that there is quite a bit of diversity not only in these tracks, but in synthesized music. Most songs are quite soothing to listen to as background, either late at night or first thing in the morning. It’s the kind of music that requires several takes to appreciate. Rixa White does an impressive job with this collection of tracks.” — Connie G. Scammell

“White shows a natural talent for the art of composition which reveals itself in haunting, memorable melodies which catch your attention and hold your interest thru an album that drifts into varying moods while remaining a self-contained, cohesive unit.” — Donald Gorman

“I found it to be pretty ok. The tracks were unique, not sounding I was listening to the same song over and over. The music flowed well, with various instruments included but not in an discordant manner.” — C. Schmidt

You can find more about what others said about this album in Reviews.