Meghedi (2024)

Listening: Bandcamp, YouTube (w/visualizer)

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The next couple of soundtracks I have in the queue are real chunky guys, even chunkier than Kunitsu-Gami, so let’s slip in something short. Promtastik, sometimes known with more syllables as Narek Papoyan, is an Armenian composer in Spain who I was initially introduced to as a pretty great chiptune composer. Well, it turns out he’s also a sick violinist, as you might’ve known from his track on the ZeroRanger arrange album, and he just released an album of original music with violin as the lead instrument: Meghedi (մեղեդի, Armenian for “melody”).

If you listened to that arrangement, or some of his other recent material like his Taiko no Tatsujin submission, then you should have a good idea of what to expect instrumentally and stylistically from this album, but at the same time you kinda don’t, because this album goes a lot of places. In a good way! To the extent the album has a main style, it’d be orchestral prog, but several tracks dive more into classical music, jazz fusion, regional folk music, and pops orchestra/light music. Instrumentally it’s not quite as wild, but in addition to orchestra and piano, you’ll find rock drums and guitar, vocals, synthesizer, and electronic chaos in a few tracks.

It’s a really good album! There was only one track out of nine that I wasn’t a super big fan of, but even that track wasn’t bad and there are way more than enough wow moments for me in the other eight that I don’t even care. And Narek’s a sick violinist, so if you like sick violinin’ then there’s a bunch here. Earlier this year he asked in the #Maj7 Discord for examples of tracks with “cool JRPG violin shredding,” and clearly he absorbed their power and so here we are. It’s a very showy album, lots of maximality in some of the composition and production, but there’s some very intimate music too, particularly the final track, because that’s another aspect of “artistry and performance” that the album celebrates.

Recommended tracks:

  • Pave the Way” has the flashiest violin shreddin’

  • Showdown” is the main fusion zone of the album

  • Radiance” is the reason I wrote “electronic chaos” in the second paragraph and not just “electronics”

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