At Big Ears 2025, I decided to see Tigran Hamasyan on a whim. His band was one of several opening performances, none of which jumped out at me as a must. At an early dinner, my little group of friends decided that we’d go together. So there it was, seven of us heading to the Tennessee Theater for 75 minutes with an artist of which none of us were familiar.
What we heard was a massive jolt of energy and easily the best Big Ears opener in my several years attending the festival. Hamasyan’s four piece combined jazz, classical, Armenian folk, and the pounding, complex riffs of prog-metal. Within minutes, feet were stomping, heads were bobbing, and approving expletives were exchanged. Hamasyan was a hit.
The group’s lineup features Hamasyan on piano and keyboards, a second keyboardist, six-string bass, and drums. The keyboards are powerful and have a heavy, retro feel. The bass is tinged with distortion. But the album is not all crunch – across 24 short tracks, The Bird of a Thousand Voices tells an old folk story, containing sung lyrics, wordless chant, and cinematic interludes, not to mention a touch of Krautrock, ambient, and techno.
Nonetheless, the album’s raw energy is what keeps drawing me back to it. For the most part, the group is on a slow simmer, building tension with pastoral passages. And then they break out with rhythms that pulse like the erratic heartbeat of an alien god. The tempos of these labyrinthine segments can vary from slow to presto vivace. It is as if Hamasyan and company are speaking in musical riddles, each one more involved and harder to decipher than the last.
The Saviour is Condemned provides an example of this, with a quiet piano motif broken up by heavy angular rhythms and pounding chords. Red, White, and Black Worlds offers up another maze-like structure of voice following the bass and drums with piano rolling in the foreground. The same could be of said the rhythms of The Demon of Akn Anatak. Time signatures…I can only guess that prime numbers are involved.
Leaving the performance in Knoxville, several people mentioned that it is likely that no other performance would match the intensity of Hamasyan’s group. They were not wrong. In my opinion, the only comparable outfit was [Ahmed], an improv quartet known for their relentless drive. The Bird of a Thousand Voices effectively climaxes with The Well of Death and Resurrection, with jittery keyboard runs and eastern European vocals accentuating heavy riffs.
Hamasyan’s accomplishment here is remarkable and this studio album only gives a taste of his live show. This is beautiful and striking music, well worth the time and effort.
