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From:MUSECATCHER-BLOG OF ARTIST KALLIOPE AMORPHOUS

“Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed.” -Kahlil Gibran

Armen Ra’s new album has been released this week and features many of the works of Komitas Vardapet as translated by Armen via the theremin. I have been awaiting the release of this compilation since I first received Armen’s demo CD over a year ago when I was completely blown to the moon and back by this artists ability to transmute the subtle realm into audible beauty. Komitas is at the top of my list of adored composers, and as I sit here and listen to the translation of his work to theremin, I note that it is nothing short of exquisitely shocking in its beauty.

The theremin, also known as the aetherphone, is an electronic instrument which is unique in that it is controlled without any physical contact by the musician. It is essentially the controlling of frequencies, and as such, the magical and transformative capabilities of this instrument when in the right hands is tremendous. If there is anywhere in the world of music where the voices of the spirits are harnessed and manipulated through human touch in order to translate their message to the human ear, it is to be found in a theremin controlled by an empathic and intuitive soul. This rare and shamanistic quality is clearly witnessed in the work of Armen Ra, who seems to possess that anomalous ability in which one drops their sense of self and allows the music to manifest itself without obstruction. This is the place where the most refined art is born, and in a culture sadly and sorely lacking in this concept, this artists work is a platinum fountain in a charcoal desert.

Komitas Vardapet was an Armenian composer often regarded as the founder of Armenian classical music. A brilliant, yet tragic figure, he is considered a martyr of the Armenian genocide. In 1915, he was arrested and was forced to bear witness to the brutal and systematic extermination of so many of his contemporaries. The witnessing of these atrocities shattered his soul and his mind, and he chose isolation from the world before finally succumbing to the pain in a psychiatric hospital in 1916.

One of my favorite Komitas songs is Kroonk (translated as “The Crane”), and I have been eager to hear this piece played on theremin. It is the first track on Armen Ra’s new album, and the interpretation is divine. The song is a beautiful poem, and much like Dle Yaman (also beautifully expressed on Ra’s compilation), the lyrics may read as a melancholy love song. Yet, when one takes a closer look, it communicates the loss of life and love on a grander scale. These are the songs of the outsider, the infidel, the exiled and the persecuted.

Each boulder unassailed stands in its place,
But I from mine must wander tempest-tossed—
And every bird its homeward way can trace,
But I must roam in darkness, lone and lost.

Ah, whither leads this pathway long and dark,
My God, where ends it, thus with fears obsessed?
When shall night end this days last glimmering spark?
Where shall my weary feet tonight find rest?

The alchemy of Armen’s translations of these compositions sits in the fact that these songs are voiceless, yet they ironically are overflowing with voice. These pieces move me because they are absent of the voice of the throat, yet filled with the voice of the soul, of the ancestral spirits, of those who left this world voiceless. The singer is non-specific, yet transcendent and all encompassing; thus by its very nature, this sound can be defined as nothing less than sacred music. Another beautiful aspect of this artists work is that he transmutes the sad, the broken, and the unrequited voice into a voice of beauty and strength. The songs are as melancholy as they are beautiful, so much so in their equality, that it is almost impossible to separate these two emotional elements from one another. Among the works on this new album, I feel the essences of Rumi, Gibran, and the great Sufi poets and mystics dancing with the voices of the persecuted, the abandoned, and the alienated soul. The proof that this is more than mere poetic metaphor swirls in the space that I have sometimes seen this music create when I sit down to write. Through it, a door is often opened, and I am given the effects of Soma.

I am so appreciative of artists who have the rare spirit to create profound works like this in the midst of a world where such work teeters on the verge of extinction. It is the hallmark of compassion in art, and for those of us who walk a similar soul path, it is balm in an otherwise toxic and often depressing landscape.