Harakiri, the new studio album from singer,
songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, poet and political activist Serj Tankian is
set to be released July 10th on Reprise Records/Serjical
Strike. Look for a teaser video with a snippet of the first
single, "Figure It Out," on Serj's website next
week.
Harakiri, a Japanese word meaning ritual suicide, is
the follow up to 2010's critically acclaimedImperfect Harmonies and
the third solo release from the System Of A Down frontman. As with 2007'sElect
the Dead and Imperfect Harmonies, Serj produced Harakiri himself
at his home studio in Los Angeles. He tried to approach writing a little
differently this time around "I used the Apple iPad as a songwriting
instrument to sketch out three of the songs on the record" explains Serj.
"We must trick ourselves into writing in different ways to get unexpected
results." The album will also feature performances by Serj's touring band,
The F.C.C. - Dan Monti on guitar, Mario Pagliarulo on bass, and Troy Zeigler on
drums. Dan Monti is also co-mixing and co-engineering the album with
Serj. The album is mastered by Vlado Meller (Metallica, Red Hot Chili
Peppers, Kanye West).
Serj reveals each of the song titles in a statement
describing Harakiri below. The song names are in order and in
bold:
"The Cornucopia of love/hate
affairs with Gaia have made us scream "Figure It Out! CEOs are the
disease." Where abusive capitalism's only fate is human/environmental
devastation. The Ching Chime, diminutive drama of a gangsta Butterfly revealed
that humanity's tears actually outweigh yearly rainfall on the planet.
We have witnessed Harakiri on a grand
scale tearing out the Occupied Tears of victims preyed on by
victims turned aggressors creating a Deafening Silence through
which we hear a voice plead, "Forget Me Knot, my child."
Reality TV has become the searing
indictment of a society best described as the Uneducated Democracy.
The daughters of the evolution Weave On with blood dripping
down their guilty hands onto the flag as the word republic is replaced by
empire." - Serj Tankian
"The year 2011 started with a fire. Some
kids in Piha, NZ were setting off fireworks that landed on my neighbor's
property and lit the whole hill on fire. I knew it was going to be a hell
of a year and it certainly was," says Serj. "Within 5 days of
that, reports came out about birds and fish dying in massive numbers globally.
The omen was not lost on me. Varied creatures on earth were
committing massive hara-kiri (the Japanese term signifying ritualistic
suicide.) Do they know something we don't about the coming times or the
sustainability of the environment? That is the day I started writing this
record."
The symbolism of entire species eradicating themselves on a
large scale struck Serj emotionally, and is an underlying theme on the entire
record. He took that idea and went to work writing, incorporating all of
the experiences of his chaotic year to make a different kind of record.
"The record is different than any I've made as a solo artist. It is much
more driving and punk oriented with influences ranging from goth to
electronic to 80's vibes, dynamically heavy rock to epic melodic songs.
Lyrically, it spans the gauntlet of themes from personal, political and
philosophical to spiritual, humor and love."
Much of Harakiri was written in 2011, which
was an incredibly busy year for the diversely talented musician and what Serj
describes as "the busiest, most productive year of my life so far."
In February, the rock musical Prometheus Bound,which he composed
all of the music for, opened at the Oberon Theater at Harvard in Boston to rave
reviews. 2011 also saw Serj release his second poetry book,Glaring Through
Oblivion. He toured with System of a Down across three continents,
performed with the Opera Orchestra in Yerevan, Armenia, where he also had
political meetings with heads of state and hosted non-profit events. He then
performed his first ever concert in Lebanon, the place of his birth, with the
Lebanese National Symphony Orchestra. When he returned to the US, he
finished writing four records: a jazz record, an electronic record he wrote
with his friend Jimmy Urine of Mindless Self Indulgence, a full classical
symphony called Orca, and the new solo rock record, Harakiri, which
comes out July 10th.
No comments:
Post a Comment