Renowned composer and jazz pianist Tigran Hamasyan returns with “Postlude: After Seven WInters”, the fifth and final single before the official release of his eagerly-awaited forthcoming album, The Bird Of A Thousand Voices out August 30 via naïve Records.
After two exceptional concerts in Amsterdam, the release of a video game and a tour of festivals all over Europe, Tigran shows us a track with a completely different sensibility to the previous ones, taking over the melody of “The Kingdom” alone on the piano.
Listen To “Postlude: After Seven WInters” HERE
The original story, The Bird Of A Thousand Voices (Hazaran Blbul), was written from oral tradition in the early 20th century by Gayane Grigor Gaboyan. The Bird of a Thousand Voices, is rediscovering this story in a transmedia project, consisting of an innovative live-staged play, two ambitious cinematic fiction music videos, a documentary music video and an online game.
The online game matching the theme of the album was just launched this week and can be played by visiting the website HERE.
Click HERE to watch this excerpt from the live performance "The Curse" streamed live at the Holland Festival in Amsterdam on June 8, 2024.
"Historically these folk tales with epic proportions have been told in the times of turmoil and change," says Hamasyan. "Firstly, what I look in music is the sense of eternity. There is always some piece of music or film that has this sense of eternity/timelessness in it, something unexplainably beautiful to the point of being divinely mysterious that you never get tired of as life goes on. And it sort of becomes almost like means to connect you with some kind of an inner experience. When I first read this ancient tale, which was handed down to us mainly through oral tradition where these great storytellers would gather people around the fire and tell the big mythic/universal stories, I really felt the story resonating with the world where I live now and I again felt this sense of eternity and timelessness in it."
During the lockdown caused by the global Covid pandemic, Hamasyan took things a bit slower and worked from his home studio in Los Angeles.
He states, “I started exploring some analogue synthesizers and building the compositions with them. For the heavier tunes I really wanted to recreate that metal sound with analogue synths and pedals rather than let’s say having an eight string guitar player. I was looking for a different sound/something that was different from the conventional prog-metal sound (i.e. Meshuggah) inspired sound.”
Hamasyan continues, “During this time I was also improvising with the synths and writing new music that came to represent the slower more ambient tracks of the album, some harmonically explorative electro/acoustic “pop” songs and interludes. The music on this album has a synthesizer driven “orchestral” sound featuring piano and voices on most compositions and I tried to channel new Armenian melodies and also some imagined melodies that could have been written in very ancient times when the kingdoms of Aratta, Sumer, Hayasa flourished as this story has direct connection to mythology and belief systems that go back to more than 5000 years (with the Indo- European myth at its core). I think the reason I feel a strong connection to these ancient tales and thousands of years old traditional art forms and music born in the process of rites that again go back to ancient times is because I am the descendent of these people who have lived in the territory of greater Armenia.”
The ambition and audacity of this conceptual project need no further demonstration.
Watch the film "Areg And Manushak" directed by Ruben Van Leer HERE.
The Bird Of A Thousand Voices album tracklisting:
The Kingdom*
The Curse*
The Bird Of A Thousand Voices
Areg's Calling
The Path Of No Return
The Quest Begins
Areg And Manushak*
The Saviour Is Condemned
Guidance
Flaming Horse And The Thunderbolt Sword
Red, White And Black Worlds
Bells Of Memory
Only The One Who Brought The Bird Can Make It Sing*
Prophecy Of A Sacrifice
The Demon Of Anatak
Temptations
Forty Days In The Realm Of Bottomless Eye
He Refuses To Be Immortal
The Return
Betrayed By Brothers
The Well Of Death And Resurrection
Sing Me A Song When You Will Be At The Place Where All Is Bliss
The Eternal Birds Sings And The Garden Blooms Again
Postlude*
Album pre-save and digital preorder available HERE
*Currently available for streaming/download
