ARMEN CHAKMAKIAN
Ceremonies
(c) (p) 1998 TruArt Records
10tks/56mins

This music flows into your house with the lambent rhythms of Gypsy Rain, swoops you and whirls in the dance of healing melodies. There is passion in it, there is secret sadness of lonely heart, there is unconditioned joy of life. Just life, the life itself with all its emotions and experiences is there. And the keyboards of Armen Chakmakian lead you through that variety telling the true stories. And they are arranged with rhythm threading the whole album.

Each composition of Ceremonies was born after the certain events in the Armen Chakmakian's life, every melody has its own story. They are very different. The compositions are deep and beautiful. But even among them I would like to accentuate two -- Ceremonies and Distant Lands. Maybe that's because in those melodies the Armenian roots of Armen Chakmakian show themselves especially clear. Generally, the echo of his forefathers' culture is present in all of his compositions. The artist mixes Armenian and Middle Eastern rhythms with the western music, and the resulting incredible cocktail he calls new world music. That new world music just cannot leave you untouched, it makes you moving in its stream. The last metaphor is not accidental; there is width in Chakmakian's music, you cannot keep it. It is similar to sunrays, just dissolving the dark. And duduk of Djivan Gasparyan makes this music bottomless, cosmic. Being born somewhere deeply inside, it flows into the space, to some other, high, forgotten realms...

I should tell about the musicians participated in this project. Beside Djivan Gasparyan, here one can hear guitar of the famous Alex de Grassi (oh gold days of Windham Hill!), oud of John Bilezikjian, drums of Greg Ellis, member of the well known duet Vas, and also great number of various live instruments, used for their parts by the remarkable musiciants: Ramon Yslas - percussion, Andy Abad - acoustic guitar and tres, Stu Nevitt - drums and various percussion, Doug Lynn - bass, Andre Harutyunyan - dhol, dumbek and finger djembe. A brilliant company of artists! Not only performance but also sound of the album deserves is worthy to be praised.

What else can be said about that music? Being very ancient and eternally young, it needs no introducing. It will find you by itself...

Serge Kozlovsky