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Tigran Hamasyan – The Bird of a Thousand Voices (2024)
Review by Thom Jurek:
Pianist, composer, and keyboardist Tigran Hamasyan is no stranger to musical eclecticism. His catalog offers complex, intricate albums that transcend most genre boundaries. While best known as a jazz pianist, it is but one dimension in his musical character. The various folk and sacred music traditions of Armenia provide inspiration for compositions that crisscross jazz, folk, indie pop, classical, prog, and metal. Since the 2010s, he has been collaborating with filmmaker Ruben Van Leer. They realized the visual musical experience Shadow Theater in Paris, and have worked on various music video projects together. The Bird of a Thousand Voices is another one. Hamasyan's most complex compositional work, it's based on an Armenian folk tale about a prince's quest to find the bird whose song heals those cursed by indifference. The pianist began this 90-plus-minute, 24-track work in 2019, completed it in 2023, and premiered it at the Holland Festival in June 2024. His collaboration with Van Leer extends here to two cinematically ambitious music videos, a documentary, and an interactive online game. Hamasyan has also created a unique website for the release. He is assisted by drummer/percussionist Nate Wood, vocalist Areni Agbabian, bassist Marc Karapetian, Swedish-Ethiopian singer Sofia Jernberg, and classical vocalist Vahram Sarkissian. Hamasyan's instrument choices include a host of analog synths and piano. These compositions range across and often combine synth-heavy prog metal and ambient electronica, jazz improvisation and ethereal pop with melodic Armenian folk music as the thread that binds them. Opener "The Kingdom" commences with gauzy synths (think Jan Bang) in circular patterns, slamming blastbeat drumming, and Agbabian's sublime wordless soprano guided by Karapetian's bass. Hamasyan sounds like he's trying to adapt prog metal without using guitars. The single "The Curse" commences as a folk ballad on piano with whistling bass and drums before exploding into thunderous prog and then segueing into the mysterious title cut, full of economical classical piano, atmospheric synths, and wispy wordless vocals. Hamasyan sings on several tracks here, including the intimate piano ballad "Areg's Calling." "The Quest Begins" offers a piano intro and circular harmonic pattern that recalls the work of modernist composer Edvard Mirzoyan. "Red, White and Black Worlds" is a questing collision between prog, metal, and jazz improv, and "Prophecy of a Sacred" weds folk and vanguard classical piano before a choir of ethereal wordless voices claim the fore. While "The Well of Death and Resurrection" offers a complex rhythmic and harmonic base worthy of Frank Zappa, the third from last track, "The Eternal Bird Sings and the Garden Blooms Again," joins ELP-esque prog, indie pop, and jazz syncopation in framing Agbabian's vocal that transforms these disparate parts into a canvas of resonant beauty. Despite the stylistic menage here, Hamasyan manages to realize the most cohesive, focused, and liberated work in his catalog to date. He has issued many fine recordings -- Red Hail, Mockroot, and An Ancient Observer, among them -- but the stunning, kaleidoscopic Bird of a Thousand Voices towers above them. — allmusic
Track List:
01 - The Kingdom
02 - The Curse (Blood of an Innocent Is Spilled)
03 - The Bird of a Thousand Voices
04 - Areg's Calling (Towards the World Above)
05 - The Path of No Return
06 - The Quest Begins
07 - Areg and Manushak (He Saw Her Reflection in the Water)
08 - The Saviour Is Condemned
09 - Guidance (Areg Meets Zaman)
10 - Flaming Horse and the Thunderbolt Sword (From the Depths of the Sea)
11 - Red, White and Black Worlds
12 - Bells of Memory
13 - Only the One Who Brought the Bird Can Make It Sing
14 - Prophecy of a Sacrifice
15 - The Demon of Akn Anatak
16 - Temptations (Follow the Luminous Feather)
17 - Forty Days in the Realm of Bottomless Eye (He Brings Light Into the Soil of Evil)
18 - He Refuses to Be Immortal (The Goddess of Paradise Gives Him the Enchanting Bird)
19 - The Return (Through Vast Deserts, Seas and Dark Mountains)
20 - Betrayed By Brothers
21 - The Well of Death and Resurrection
22 - Sing Me a Song When You Wil Be at the Place Where All Is Bliss
23 - The Eternal Birds Sings and the Garden Blooms Again
24 - Postlude (After Seven Winters)
Media Report:
Genre: electronic, jazz, prog-rock
Origin: Armenia 
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
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