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" inf...