Manifeste

Pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyans Armenian homeland has always been centrally located in his work. Its music, history, spirituality, culture, and folk traditions shoot through his catalog. Manifeste, his 13th album, offers a deeply personal spiritual focus on Armenia and the world through a pilgrims lens as he seeks truth and his own identity while reveling in joy, suffering, and revelation. It unfolds in a polyrhythmic, multi-textural tapestry of genres and styles in a cathartic ritual sequence crossing and combining jazz, fusion, prog, metal, Armenian folk, and sacred music, electronics, and modern classical. These tracks wrestle with jagged polyrhythmic juxtapositions and restless polytonalities that metaphorically reflect the pilgrims desire, character, and growing awareness. Elsewhere, homesickness, heartbreak, and spiritual and sensual ecstasy dovetail in musical whispers, growls, and gentle elegance. Hamasyan recorded in studios from Yerevan and Athens to Moscow and Los Angeles. His keyboards are framed by conventional and traditional folk instruments -- blul (an end-blown flute), and the daf frame drum. Vocalist Asta Mamikonyan and the Yerevan State Chamber Choir, conducted by Kristina Voskanyan, also guest. "Prelude for All Seekers" is driven by fluid piano and interpolating synth. Cello, electric bass, drums, and electric guitar wed shifting vamps to crisscrossing harmonies before Nick Llerandis metallic guitar drives the proceeding home with fierce authority. "Yerevan Sunrise" is a midtempo fusion ballad that places trumpet, electric bass, and shuffling drums on one side and Hamasyans various keys on the other. The title cut reflects the influence of Frank Zappa (circa Waka Jawaka and Grand Wazoo). As the choir meets the rhythm section in polyharmonic and shifting rhythmic contrast, synths and piano deliver a progressive, riff-laden cadence. "Seven Sorrows" is introduced by church bells before a classically tinged piano vamp frames the lonesome cello and deep rumbling bass in a suite-like progression that admits the choir, adding atmosphere and texture before shedding its skin to become a thrumming post-bop jam. "War Time Poem" (the sets first single and video) begins as a haunting elegy and transforms into driving King Crimson-esque prog breakdowns in a kinetic romp of keys, basses, guitars, and cello. Its an aural postcard to those children who, even in conflict, amid endless wars, are still creating their own lives. Its followed by "The Fire Child (Vahagn Is Born)," wherein an ambient vocal chant adorned by electronics paints conviction in blurry layers. The gentle "Per Mané," is sung by Mamikonyan in an unhurried, tender, trance-like voice before keys, drums, and bass wrap her in a simmering maelstrom. "A Window from One Heart to Another (For Rumi)" features Armenian folk instruments over fiery piano. "National Repentance Anthem" closes the circle with mournful piano and solemn choir reflecting spiritual acceptance balanced by solace, reflection, and the pilgrims gauzy hope. Manifeste is a powerful exercise in advanced composition and discovery; its personal, emotionally resonant, and profoundly spiritual while taking historys measure of the world we inhabit. ~ Thom Jurek