The Call Within(Nonesuch)

Tigran Hamasyan

Released August 2020

Jazzwise Top 10 Releases of 2020

BBC Music Magazine Greatest Jazz Albums 2020

Jazziz Best Albums of 2020

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mzPYoQQqVx7-LGIFWch00x0ChNkabe6a4

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/album/1KnvMsGgQMeB24GK75i2GL?si=Qnpk_XZlRYKOORbdyGMEEA

About:

Nonesuch Records releases its fourth recording from pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan, The Call Within, on August 28, 2020. The album comprises ten original compositions and features Evan Marien on electric bass and Arthur Hnatek on drums, along with special guests Tosin Abasi on the Armenian prog tune “Vortէx” and Areni Agbabian and Artyom Manukyan on “Our Film.”

Produced by Hamasyan, The Call Within is a journey into the artist’s dreamlike inner world, which is as realistic to him as his physical one. Hamasyan, who believes that the “moment of unconscious creation is the way to feel conscious,” says: “Unutterable seconds of longing, subliminal realization, and mostly joy fill the body as a work of art, a poem, or a melody is being born into this world for no apparent reason, but only for the humanity to discover what is invisible: the divine mystery.”

The album takes inspiration from Hamasyan’s interest in maps from different eras, along with poetry, Christian and pre-Christian Armenian folk stories and legends, astrology, geometry, ancient Armenian design, rock carvings, and cinematography—blurring lines between historic reality and the imaginary world.

Hamasyan began playing piano at the age of three and started performing in festivals and competitions when he was eleven, winning the Montreux Jazz Festival’s piano competition in 2003. He released his debut album, World Passion, in 2005 at the age of seventeen. The following year, he won the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition. Additional albums include New Era; Red Hail; A Fable, for which he was awarded a Victoires de la Musique (the equivalent of a Grammy Award in France); Shadow Theater; and Luys i Luso. His Nonesuch debut, Mockroot (2015), won the Echo Jazz Award for International Piano Instrumentalist of the Year; subsequent records for the label include An Ancient Observer (2017) and the companion EP, For Gymuri (2018). In addition to awards and critical praise, Hamasyan has built a dedicated international following, as well as praise from Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Brad Mehldau.

Track Listing:

1. Levitation 21 (Tigran Hamasyan) 05:05

2. Our Film (Tigran Hamasyan) 05:13

3. Ara Resurrected (Tigran Hamasyan) 08:22

4. At a Post-Historic Seashore (Tigran Hamasyan) 01:39

5. Space of Your Existence (Tigran Hamasyan) 04:42

6. The Dream Voyager (Tigran Hamasyan) 05:05

7. Old Maps (Tigran Hamasyan) 02:30

8. Vortex (Tigran Hamasyan) 05:19

9. 37 Newlyweds (Tigran Hamasyan) 03:33

10. New Maps (Tigran Hamasyan) 06:17

Personnel:

Tigran Hamasyan: piano, keyboards, vocals, whistling, synthesisers, effects, electronic drums

Evan Marien: bass

Arthur Hnatek: drums

Featuring:
Areni Aghbabian: vocals (2)
Artyom Manukyan: cello (2)
Varduhi Art School Children’s Choir: vocals (6)
Tosin Abasi: guitar (8)
Beth and Steve Wood: backup vocals (9)

Recorded September 21–25, 2019, at Evelyn & Mo Ostin Music Centre at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music
Produced by Tigran Hamasyan
Engineered by S. Husky Huskolds, except “37 Newlyweds” recorded and engineered by Steve Wood at Benaji Studio
Assistant Engineer: Jorge Velasco
Additional recordings on “Our Film,” “Ara Resurrected,” “Space of Your Existence,” and “New Maps” engineered by Mesrop Sarkisyan at Wave Recordings
All tracks mixed by Pete Min, except “Our Film” produced and mixed by Mesrop Sarkisyan

Photography by Elena Hamasyan
Artwork and Design by Nana Tchitchoua
Co-designer: T. Wade Ivy
Poetry and Text by Tigran Hamasyan
Edited by Susanna Sargsyan

Special thanks to UCLA recording studio and the Armenian program at UCLA

Executive Producers: Robert Hurwitz and Tigran Hamasyan

Review:

On his third trio album, the 33-year-old Armenian-born, LA-based pianist-composer Tigran Hamasyan intensifies the uniquely personal soundworld he developed on previous Nonesuch trio releases 2013’s Shadow Theatre and 2015’s Mockroot. The Call Within marks a more daring interplay of extremes where the slamming intensity of high energy contemporary groove-metal meets the celestial-bound melodies and metrically-complex folk music traditions largely sourced from his Armenian heritage. Yet the deep connections he’s made in his exploration of ancient and contemporary culture have inspired the organic integration of musical elements on this recording. If we had to talk sub-genres, it would be more contemporary art folk-prog than post-rock jazz fusion. Tigran’s prayer-like vocal on the opener ‘Levitation 21’ – slightly reminiscent of the ethereal folk-pop of the ‘Cocteau Twins’ Liz Frazer – is gatecrashed by a sudden explosion of amphetamine-fuelled, staccato prog-metal bass and drums and looping guitar-like piano riffs.

On ‘Our Film’ Tigran whistles a stirring, memorable tune the late Spaghetti Western-era Morricone might well have been proud of until a jagged metal-piano riff gets caught up in a storm of colliding pulses and impossible staccato rhythms. It’s another yin-yang moment. Extreme opposites attract; the transcendental and confrontational are organically aligned in Tigran’s world. A series of serene interludes are the calm after the storm: processional ‘Newlyweds’ is gracefully poised and hymn-like, perfectly in synch with the celebration of a union of soulmates, while ‘The Dream Voyager’ echoes something of Pat Metheny and the Mehldau-Guiliana duo Mehliana’s analogue dreamscape. An exceptional recording for what is exceptional times. 

Selwyn Harris (Jazzwise)