New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ Silentaria official website) "Survival is an ancient dream. Life is nothing but an everlasting illusion. Nothing is Real. Don't believe in illusion, remember me, I am here … "
This is not a conversation from a witchcraft movie, but a title story for Silentaria's new album; "What's Real?". "This is a story of a lost creature, surrounded by reality and illusion contradiction, as mentioned by Rixa White; the self-taught pianist, keyboardist, composer and poet behind Silentaria musical project.
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. 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.
"A slight change", a poem by Rixa White explains it all:
Pains are not to be relieved
Sorrows are not to fade away
a slight change in the vision
may bring a new experience
"What's Real?" 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 circle of light which is iconic in most Silentaria's album covers, here represents the enlightenment of the one who seeks for the answer of "What's Real?".
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.
