Artist: Tigran Hamasyan
Album: An Ancient Observer
Genre: Jazz
Release Date: 2017
Audio Format:: FLAC (tracks) 24 bit, 44,1 kHz
Duration: 44:57
Total Tracks: 10
Total Size: 406 MB
Tracklist:
1-1. Tigran Hamasyan – Markos And Markos (05:38)
1-2. Tigran Hamasyan – The Cave Of Rebirth (05:39)
1-3. Tigran Hamasyan – New Baroque 1 (01:50)
1-4. Tigran Hamasyan – Nairian Odyssey (11:00)
1-5. Tigran Hamasyan – New Baroque 2 (01:36)
1-6. Tigran Hamasyan – Etude No. 1 (02:08)
1-7. Tigran Hamasyan – Egyptian Poet (02:20)
1-8. Tigran Hamasyan – Fides Tua (04:51)
1-9. Tigran Hamasyan – Leninagone (03:56)
1-10. Tigran Hamasyan – Ancient Observer (05:57)
Download:
Nonesuch Records releases its second album from pianist Tigran Hamasyan, “An Ancient Observer”. The album is the follow-up to Hamasyan’s label debut, Mockroot, of which the Guardian said, “A phenomenal piano player, an irrepressible entertainer, a promising experimenter with hi-tech gizmology and a creative world-music composer. Mockroot plays vivaciously to all those strengths”. The musician says of his new solo recording, which features ten new compositions: “These songs are musical observations about the world we live in now, and the weight of history we carry with us”.An Ancient Observer’s songs—two of which are based on Armenian melodies—were written over the last four years. Some of the pieces are through-composed and completely written out, while others are composed with ample space for Hamasyan to improvise. Many include vocals layered into the mix. As with most of his compositions, Hamasyan cites a wide range of influences, from Baroque dance to hip-hop, with pedals connected to a synthesizer on a few tracks—while the sounds of his native country also are present, as always.
Hamasyan has returned to Armenia, where his daily life inspired these new pieces: “I gaze out of my window and see the biblical mountain Ararat with perpetual snow on its peak, with electrical towers with wires in the foreground cutting the picture, and satellite dishes melted onto old and modern houses—ancestral smoke coming out of their chimneys—and birds hovering above the trees along with occasional airplane trails in the vast sky. It is a dialogue, this interaction of God-given ancient nature with our modern human achievements”, he says. “For me it is an awakening, and a beautiful feeling, to be able to observe the magnificence of this sleeping volcanic giant, which has existed for millions of years and was observed by the Ararat Valley Koura-Arax culture through to the present day citizens of the Armenian republic. I can see and observe the same birds, animals, rivers, and mountains that the craftsman of 4,000 years ago painted on a clay vessel. He was observing the same thing I observe now, and what remains is his or her beautiful work of art”.