Move over Mozart, back off Bach, Serj Tankian is here with his own 24-minute classical composition which is the perfect Sunday accompaniment.
Tankian – yes, System of a Down’s Serj Tankian – released the lengthy classical piece, titled ‘Disarming Time: A Modern Piano Concerto’, on Saturday, according to Loudwire. The epic piece even comes with an official music video, showing scenes of nature, art, and even fainting goats.
It’s the first preview of his new project, the wonderfully named Cool Gardens Poetry Suite. The suite will be composed of four experimental tracks and will clock in at nearly 48 minutes. It will include spoken word sections taken from Tankian’s recent poetry book, Cool Gardens, and in total he’ll narrate 87 of his poems throughout the suite.
Tankian revealed that this new experimental direction is a result of the pandemic leaving him itching for a musical challenge. “One night sitting in bed looking through different voice memos on the iPhone I realised I have this huge trove of short, special, unrealised musical ideas,” he said.
“Right then the thought of creating an epic piece utilising them all made me smile. So I recorded them all and started arranging the instrumentation to create this incredibly unique musical experience. I mean, who the fuck listens to 24 minutes of music as one piece today?”
Tankian has really been treating his fans in 2021. He’s already released the well-received solo EP Elasticity, which was a fascinating insight into what any potential System of a Down album could have been had the band worked things out together in time.
The Armenian-American also recently released a feature-length documentary, Truth to Power, about how Tankian and System of a Down used music as a vehicle for social and political change.
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Check out ‘Disarming Time: A Modern Piano Concerto’ by Serj Tankian:
