Style: contemporary jazz, jazz fusion, djazz, experimental (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: BADBADNOTGOOD, Meshuggah, Hiromi, Animals as Leaders, Chick Corea
Country: Armenia
Release date: 6 February 2026

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Tigran Hamasyan‘s music can be an acquired taste. From the very first measures of his 2006 debut, World Passion, Hamasyan has played with metre and rhythm as though they were trifles, and not the skeleton and musculature of his compositions. The resulting scoliotic chimeras, limping and shuffling, are fascinating to some listeners, but revolting to others. Although it wasn’t as apparent on Hamasyan‘s earliest albums, liquid metal has always flowed through the veins of those creatures; 2015’s Mockroot exhibits the Armenian pianist’s (now-signature) heavy jazz / rock fusion which gained him acceptance in—of all places—the progressive metal community.¹ The composer who originally wanted to be a thrash metal guitarist is now something of a once-in-a-generation crossover success, appreciated by buff headbangers in ripped denim jackets and jazz buffs in neatly-stitched tweed blazers alike.

Hamasyan is not the kind of artist who shuns the idea of technical challenges for their own sake. In the liner notes for Mockroot, he breaks down “Entertain Me”, a composition built around “a melody that is grouped in 35/16 that repeats seven times and then resets”—not the easiest of feats for any musician to count. “Nairian Odyssey” off 2017’s An Ancient Observer has been called “fiendishly complex” by British composer David Bruce for its intentionally misleading rhythmic disconnect between the piano and the drums.² Manifeste continues this peacocking tradition at its outset: “Prelude For All Seekers” is characterized by a similar polyrhythmic game between the keys and the rhythm section. The trope continues in the midsection of “Manifeste”: follow the drums and you’ll hear the song as 16/16, grouped in quadruplets, but if you try to follow the piano melody on its own, you’ll very quickly trip over yourself. Like mirages in the desert, Hamasyan‘s carefully-constructed compositions make you think you know where you’re going—but blink just once and you’re as lost as you ever were.

Manifeste presents a stunning emotional range, as well. The first and penultimate are two of its heaviest tracks: the driving “Prelude For All Seekers” and the cringe-inducingly-named “A Eye – The Digital Leviathan”. On the latter, Hamasyan‘s right hand dances in minor scales while his left falls at unpredictable intervals and with an intense gravity, justifying comparisons some have made to djent acts like Meshuggah. At the other end of the spectrum, tracks like “One Body, One Blood” allow the listener time and space to breathe: where a simple, delicate, repetitive piano melody relinquishes the foreground to a haunting choir. “Dardahan”, a supremely joyous song, is hard to listen to without cracking a smile, though equally as impossible to dance to as just about anything Hamasyan has composed. The emotional peak of the album, though, has to be “War Time Poem”. Like a cautious, fragile child stepping out into a deceptively calm neighbourhood, a solo piano peeks out at the start; joined by a friend, the two sets of keys play for a time—and then a bomb drops. The accompanying film for the track features footage of children who were forced from their homes during the 2023 ethnic cleansing of Armenians from the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. Hamasyan explains that the composition is unexpectedly optimistic:

“This video is a postcard from a not-so-distant past, a gentle reminder for all of us. It’s a postcard to all the children who, even amid endless wars, are still creating their own lives and worlds full of color and dreams. This video is us, holding unanswered questions yet certain that the path we have chosen is one of honesty and love.” [source]

The Armenian experience is one shaped by tragedies that span generations—but, as Hamasyan shows, one with a rich, beautiful heritage as well. Speaking on the Armenian Genocide, he says:

“…it is something that I feel pain for. But at the same time, it’s something I don’t want to dwell on too much. I want to keep concentrating on what cultural heritage I have, and how it is relevant in this time. Being an Armenian, living in Armenia, I’m kind of embracing whatever is left and whatever I have.” [source]

In celebration of that culture, Manifeste features the talents of a host of Armenian musicians. Asta Mamikonyan lends her vocal talents to “Per Mané – Eb Venice song”, creating a beautiful, wispy melodic throughline which carries the listener through the more chaotic experimental back half of the track. Yessai Karapetian plays the blul, a traditional Armenian shepherd’s flute, on “Window From One Heart To Another – For Rumi”, imbuing the composition with a real earthiness. Closing the album, The Yerevan State Chamber Choir feature on “National Repentance Anthem”, a beautifully sombre dirge which acts as a kind of denouement, where the listener can reflect on the previous hour or so of music they have experienced and contemplate the chaos, the calm, the heartwrenching agony, and—most importantly—the joy of life, and the skill with which Hamasyan has managed to capture all of that and distill it in his compositions.

Some records are concrete, utilitarian. You get what you hear and you hear what you get, without much adornment. Manifeste is as close to the polar opposite of that as possible. Although constructed from the same instrumental materials as other records, it is closer to a Sagrada Familia than a Boston City Hall. For an album with so few lyrics, it is ironic that it tries to say so very much. Hamasyan‘s adoration of his culture, his people, and his homeland shines through at every opportunity. Although the framework of Manifeste is defined largely by the hammer and nails of polyrhythm and jazz harmony, it’s the emotional depth which lights the hearth.

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Recommended tracks: War Time Poem, Prelude For All Seekers, Dardahan, Manifeste
You may also like: Clément Belio, Milton Man Gogh, Trioscapes, Shubh Saran, mouse on the keys
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Official Website | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Naïve Records

Tigran Hamasyan is
– Tigran Hamasyan (piano, synths, vocals, drum programming, composition, production)

With studio performances by
– Nick Llerandi (guitar)
– Artyom Manukyanon (cello)
– Marc Karapetian (bass on tracks 1, 3, 8, 10, 13)
– Arthur Hnatek (electronic instrumentation on track 4, drums, drum programming)
– Arman Mnatsakanyan, Matt Garstka and Nate Wood (additional drums)
– Daniel Melkonyan (trumpet on track 6)
– Evan Marien (bass on track 7)
– Asta Mamikonyan (vocals on track 11)
– Hamin Honari (daf on track 12)
– Yessaï Karapetian (blul on track 12)
– The Yerevan State Chamber Choir, conducted by Kristina Voskanyan (track 14)

1. Tosin Abasi of instrumental progressive metal band Animals as Leaders actually features on the track “Vortex” from Hamasyan’s 2020 album, The Call Within. ↩︎
2. Reminiscent, to this writer, of The Call Within‘s “Levitation 21”. ↩︎