Album Review: Secular Rituals from Wayne Alpern

Album:  Secular Rituals
Artist:  Wayne Alpern
Label: Henri Elkan Music
Website:  www.waynealpern.com

If celestial bodies could sing, people would imagine they'd sound like Wayne Alpern's soundscapes from his latest release Secular Rituals. Notes float like wandering silhouettes, both delicate and symphonic sounding, emerging and withdrawing spontaneously, each working harmoniously and separately. Written, composed, arranged, and performed by Alpern, the recording characterizes a series of illustrations, using notes that usually form dialogues and conversations are building pictures that change and evolve organically.

Audiences may detect a myriad of influences in Alpern's music such as a reggae-skew in the flittering whistles along "Brave Art," joined by the Gaelic accents of a bagpipe's echo.  The jaunty pulse of the keyboards helming "Sista Re" wield a rhythm and blues ilk, and the percussive beating threading through "Triangularity" infuse a calypso timbre across the soundscape.  Other tracks like "Bach CmP" and "Utopia" have glittering notes that shine like a field of diamonds while "Afterglow" rings like a solemn dirge.

Art galleries and studio lofts are conducive settings for Alpern's compositions but so are outdoor bandshells and amphitheaters.  The whimsical feel of the sonic patterns contradicts the fluidity of the melodic passages.  The synthetic tone of the keyboards give audiences the illusion of the music being artificial, and yet, paradoxically, the images that Alpern creates resonate with listeners, forming real pictures in their dream-state minds.  The term secular rituals suggests non-spiritual/spiritual ceremonies.  A paradox itself, the music crosses genres and broadens the listener's mind.

Musicians:
Wayne Alpern: All Instruments