✏️ About vintage Armenian dance music

When I arrived in Armenia in 2022, I immediately set myself the goal of creating a playlist dedicated to vintage Armenian dance music — disco, funk, rhythm, and blues. But things didn’t go smoothly with this playlist right away. Armenians are among the top five nations in the Middle East in terms of the amount of funk and disco they’ve produced. But the mastodons I had heard before my trip to Armenia greatly distorted my perception and hindered me from expanding the list.

Back in 2019, I heard the reissued record of Hamlet Minasyan by Numero Group, recorded in Iran in 1979 on the eve of the Iranian Revolution. For an entire month after that, I started and ended my day listening to "Alas-Alas." That song seemed to me like music for a nonexistent Parajanov-like parable filled with anachronisms from the 80s. Remember in "Ashik Kerib" when the women from the Shah's harem suddenly pull out machine guns and start shooting in the air? Well, it seemed to me that in this nonexistent film, for example, Jason, on his way to the Golden Fleece, might detour to an ancient Armenian kingdom and in the Temple of Mithra, instead of a statue of the sun deity, he would meet Hamlet Minasyan.

In 2021, when Karen (the author of this website) and I were at my house listening to the new Altin Gün album, he told me about Harut Pambukchyan. In Karen’s family, his music was always played at gatherings and celebrations. It seemed to me that Harut resembled Altin Gün more than any of the Turkish predecessors. Once again, an Armenian artist stuck in my player for a long time, and Karen and I even decided to try to do something like Altin Gün but in an Armenian style: reworking classic 70s pop songs with funkier and groovier arrangements.

Later that same year, Daron Sassounian released an absolutely brilliant compilation *Silk Road: Journey of The Armenian Diaspora*. Daron spent several years collecting rare Armenian records and compiled the best tracks from 1971 to 1982. The dance potential seemed modest to me, and I hadn’t played the tracks from it anywhere until I reached Armenia, but I still listened with great pleasure.