Tigran Hamasyan: Manifeste

One would not be accused of spreading false theory if one were broadcasting the news that Armenian pianist/composer Tigran Hamasyan has a riot of ideas about things a lot of us take for granted or do not consider at all. Because Hamasyan, winner of the Montreux Jazz Festival Solo Piano Competition in 2003, puts it all out there with Manifeste.

Hamasyan has clearly mastered the richly progressive vein of hard rock, prog rock, avant-garde fusion, and, most importantly, a moving target sense of groove. Proof positive is the matter at hand, Manifeste, other acclaimed recent discs as The Bird of a Thousand Voices (Naive Records, 2024) and Stand Art (Naive Records, 2022). Even his 2006 Nocturne debut, the ear-and mind-opening World Passion, boasted a deep love for Armenian folklore told through America's wiles.

Within the first fourteen minutes of Manifeste, Hamasyan and cohorts, namely guitarist Nick Llerandi who can shred, chill or lay a lick at a moment's notice ("Prelude For All Seekers") and the tight, kick-ass rhythm section of bassist Marc Karapetian and drummerMatt Garstka bring a herky jerky, forward charge to the balls-to-the-wall style title track. Sandwiched between the two previously mentioned audio barrages, "Yerevan Sunrise" carries its oddly thematic, 1970's vibe to the hilt. With its choirs of storytelling voices, "One Body One Blood" and the rippling "Seven Sorrows" spin a runaway hypnosis all their own. "War Time Poem" is a prog miniature that rages and startles but never loses sight of the existential threat of annihilation. It is a killer track.

All of this would not be possible if Hamasyan's lieutenants—Llerandi, Karapetian, Garstka—were not on the exact same page as the kinetic leader. Each reads Hamasyan's shamanic, ecstatic landscapes in their own keen way, then interprets them collectively when the red light goes on. This makes for a performance, a sound, and a mix so locked into the immediate that "Ultradance" sweeps you off your feet, and the fire- breathing  "Dardahan" leaves you breathless. They are, as a wiseman once said, fun tracks.

Nine other musicians and the Yerevan State Chamber Choir play their respective parts without a fault throughout Manifest's fire-breathing seventy-minute run. And perhaps other skeptics out there will misinterpret Hamasyan's forward spread as the music of a very anxious composer trying to squeeze it all in when, in fact, it is the sound and the rush of the twenty-four-hour news cycle. It is also, most fortunately, its consequential alternative.