Wednesday 28 January 2015

Tigran Hamasyan - Shadow Theater, album review



Magical

This beautiful and brash album from Armenian, American resident Tigran Hamasyan combines virtuoso piano playing across a range of genres and then injections of Armenian folk song, jazz and classical motifs, electronic pulses and other paraphernalia, and at times exquisite vocals from Hamasyan himself and Areni Agbabian, solo and choric. You can be drifting aurally along a sweet folkesque melody and then abruptly shifted by pounding rock beats; or similarly as with second track Erista, lullaby-like tinklings and sudden progrock disruptions. It is playful as well as powerful. Third Lament begins with classical strings and an operatic/folk-pretty vocal, the peacefulness like a musical meditation, and this continues to sweep and soar without a genre interruption, so the surprise of not being surprised – certainly on that first listen – delights: knowing, it is an expectant calm. Fourth Drip immediately threatens with pounded staccato piano beats, and then there are sax bursts with bass-and-effects jazz elements, the vocals merging into clever collections. The whole album continues with these consummate and magical musical manipulations. Can’t wait for the imminent release of Mockroot.


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