Vintage Armenian Sounds Make a Comeback Thanks to Armenian DJs

On a weekday afternoon in early April, Anaïs Gyulbudaghyan and Zachary Asdourian sit at a table on Glendale's Artsakh Avenue, enthusiastically sharing some of the vinyl that they've excavated from dusty record store bins and online marketplaces.

Gyulbudaghyan, a DJ and marketing professional from Yerevan, pulls out a box with a picture of a priest, seated and reading under a tree, on its cover. "This is a Komitas collectible record," she says. She and Asdourian, the L.A.-based founder of electronic music label Critique, came across it in San Francisco, where the box set was tucked into one of those bottom record store shelves reserved for worn vinyl and long-forgotten artists. "The record is in really good condition," Gyulbudaghyan says, opening the box to show the liner notes and art inside a collection made in the U.S. to celebrate the centennial of the Armenian priest, composer and ethnomusicologist.

In the early 20th century, Komitas documented the variety of folk music emanating from villages through the Armenian people's indigenous homeland. Over a century later, Gyulbudaghyan, Asdourian and other similarly-minded collectors are amassing records made across the globe by ethnic Armenian artists during vinyl's original heyday as a way of archiving, sharing and better understanding the Armenian story. Asdourian calls it "neo-Komitasism."

"It's writing a history that hasn't been written and should have been," Asdourian says. In March, he and Gyulbudaghyan launched Discotchari, a collective-style sub-label of Critique where they share their finds on non-monetized YouTube and Soundcloud channels. They also update Discogs, the online database for music releases, with the information they glean from the albums. The goal is to provide access to music that can be difficult to find both in stores and online.

The breadth of what can be considered Armenian music is ever-expanding as collectors find more and more records in far-flung locations. It might be the kef, or party, bands that formed in 1950s and 1960s Armenian American communities. It could be artists who fused traditional sounds with psychedelic rock and cumbia, like in early 1970s Uruguay, or were influenced by disco, as in France during the late 1970s and early 1980s. What they often have in common is use of the Armenian language. They might also include then-contemporary renditions of folk songs or make use of instruments like the oud, qanun, doumbek or duduk. If someone were to put all these recordings together, it would tell the story of Armenians post-Genocide, of people retaining their culture after a forced displacement while adapting to new home countries.

"It's definitely an indication of how preserving the culture is something that's ingrained in our brains," says L.A.-based producer and record collector Bei Ru.

The complication with telling this story, though, is that a lot of the records are difficult to find and many remain largely unknown. Sure, music from some of the higher profile artists, like oud player Richard Hagopian or singers Harout Pamboukjian and Adiss Harmandian, as well as releases from larger labels, are available digitally or on streaming platforms. A rare few, like John Berberian and the Rock East Ensemble's album "Middle Eastern Rock," a seminal fusion of traditional music, rock and jazz that was originally released on Verve Forecast in 1969, have been reissued on vinyl. But, there's plenty more out in the wild. Even seasoned crate diggers aren't certain of what might turn up in their searches.

"In Armenian music, I would always find records that I never knew existed," says Bei Ru. Sometimes, he would look at the credits and notice home addresses, the sign of private press recordings, meaning that the musicians released the albums themselves. That's one reason why Armenian music can be hard to trace. Some of the releases were extremely DIY.

Years ago, after coming into possession of family members' collections, Bei Ru sought out more Armenian music and those sounds influenced his early, instrumental hip-hop recordings. While he has moved onto different terrain as a producer, Bei Ru still maintains a collection of Armenian music and has his eyes peeled for a few more titles to add to it. He considers the pursuit "archaeological" in a way.

"There are all these organizations that preserve certain buildings and monuments and things like that, which I get," says Bei Ru, "but this is art and it's such a big part of the culture."

In music circles, clout comes with tracking down obscure music. You might become the DJ who popularizes a 40-year-old song that was overlooked in its time or the producer who twists an unfamiliar beat into the backbone of a new hit. But, for the Armenian collectors of Armenian music, there's a purpose that goes beyond the dance floor, the production studio and the props that go with it.

"If you're not going to do it, then who is going to do it?" says Glendale-based producer and DJ Lara Sarkissian, who collects Armenian music on various formats.

Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sarkissian was exposed to Armenian music through her mother, who collected records while living in Iran. "That had a major impact on me, but I never thought of it," she says. It wasn't until after college, when Sarkissian grew more active in producing leftfield electronic music, that she realized how influential this was. In fact, in 2016, she used her mom's collection as the basis for a mix.

Sarkissian incorporates Armenian references in her productions through "heavily manipulated and synthesized" sounds derived from the duduk, a woodwind instrument, and samples. As a DJ, she plays Armenian music in her sets and has hosted two Armenian music specials for online radio station NTS, where she has a monthly show. All this is a form of archiving culture. It's also a way to foster relationships within the music community.

"It's something that has allowed me to connect with other people in my music community, people who come from similar diaspora experiences, immigrant family experiences," says Sarkissian. "If anything, it's helped me be in dialogue with others outside of Armenians."

This Armenian Dating Show Doubles as a Lesson in Geopolitics and Culture

And that, in turn, can bring greater awareness of Armenian music and culture to the general public, particularly as music from the SWANA (Southwest Asia and North Africa) region made between the 1960s and 1980s gains popularity. "There are a lot of really cool collectives out there and the main focus for them is the SWANA region music," says Gyulbudaghyan. "I feel like everybody forgets about Armenia when they're doing that, because they don't know what's going on in Armenia. They don't have access to Armenian music."

Another reason why Armenian music can be difficult to locate is because people simply don't know how to categorize it. A record made in Iran or Lebanon might turn up in a Middle Eastern bin, while one made in Soviet Armenia is filed with Russian records and mid-20th century American-made albums land in the exotica or "other" sections. One recent compilation record, though, brought some much-needed cohesiveness to the expanse of Armenian music with its focus on funky and psychedelic sounds made in the mid-to-late 20th century.

"The Silk Road: Journey of the Armenian Diaspora" was novel upon its release last year. While there are many compilations bringing together the often-overlooked global rock, funk and soul cuts of the 20th century, none looked specifically at the Armenian diaspora. It took L.A. DJ Darone Sassounian several years of research and negotiations to make that happen. The album, which included music made by artists in Lebanon, France, the U.S. and Australia, sold out of its first 1,000-unit pressing in three weeks. Another 800-units followed and that pressing has nearly sold out.

"The general public has been very welcoming," says Sassounian. He adds that, based on the demographic information he's seen, those first-pressing sales were primarily to a non-Armenian audience. Meanwhile, he saw interest from fans of reissue labels like Habibi Funk and Soundways Records, as well those who tune into globally-minded internet stations like dublab.

"What I did is just a labor of love and, hopefully, it's the first of many," he says, adding that he hopes it inspires others, Armenian or not, to explore their roots. "I think it's important to know one's past to understand one's future."

For Armenians, there is a growing interest in this kind of cultural exploration, particularly in light of the 44-Day War in Artsakh that transpired in 2020 and continues to impact Armenians in the homeland, as well as the diaspora. "Young people started showing their interest in Armenian culture in general and they're finding different ways to promote the culture, to be more around the culture," says Gyulbudaghyan.

In these vintage sounds made by Armenian artists, there are clues to help understand identity, something that can be quite complicated, particularly for those who are now amongst the third, fourth, perhaps even fifth, generations born in diaspora. Asdourian notes that there is emotional and sentimental value to these obscure albums as well. They are a way, he adds, for people to consider, "what it means to be an Armenian person in this day and age."