Lucy Khanyan ‘Armed with Love’ CD (jazz family) 4/5

Lucy Khanyan’s music has always seemed to exist somewhere between worlds. Born in Yerevan and later based between the United States and Armenia, the pianist and composer has developed a distinctive language that draws on Armenian folk traditions, avant-garde jazz, impressionism and experimental electronics. Largely self-taught after her early musical education, she has spent the past decade exploring ways to take inherited musical ideas and reshape them rather than preserve them. Her albums Vision, PERSPektiV, Ābsentia and her imaginative reworking of Komitas all demonstrate that restless curiosity.

Armed with Love, recorded in Paris and released by Jazz Family, brings that approach into an unusually intimate setting. Khanyan is joined by French double bassist Gabriel Pierre and Brazilian drummer/percussionist Isaias Alves, creating a genuinely international trio whose interaction shapes the album’s character. The music is rooted in folk sensibilities but refuses to behave like conventional folk-jazz. Melodies appear, mutate and sometimes seem to dissolve altogether, while Khanyan’s piano moves between lyrical passages, angular harmonic shapes and more impressionistic textures.

“Order in Kaos” is an evocative opening statement, establishing a world where structure and freedom constantly rub against one another. “Heart Rip” is similarly compelling, with Pierre and Alves responding sensitively to Khanyan’s shifting ideas rather than simply providing a conventional rhythm section. There is a wonderful sense of musicians listening to one another in real time, and that feeling of dialogue is one of the album’s greatest strengths.

The six-minute “Rebirth” allows the trio more space to breathe, while “Bridge” and “It Happened Anyway” demonstrate Khanyan’s ability to create emotionally suggestive music without spelling everything out. The performances are technically assured but, more importantly, they feel personal. Khanyan describes her philosophy as a process of “becoming, unfolding” – taking tradition, identity and experience and finding an individual voice within them – and that philosophy is audible throughout the record.

And then we have the track “Mind”. And, frankly, I have to ask why? Featuring Emcee Agora on rap and spoken word, it introduces a jazz-hip-hop element that feels completely at odds with everything surrounding it. Experimentation is clearly fundamental to Khanyan’s artistic identity, and there is nothing inherently wrong with bringing rap into the equation. But here it simply doesn’t work. The track breaks the album’s atmosphere, disrupts its carefully developing momentum and feels less like a natural extension of the trio than an idea imported from another record. It is an unusually poor sequencing decision. If I’d purchased this album, I’d be getting up to skip it every time.

That criticism aside, Armed with Love is an impressive and often beautiful album. Khanyan has created a thoughtful, adventurous work in which Armenian musical heritage, contemporary jazz and improvisational freedom become part of a broader personal language. The album is short as it is, but even so, remove “Mind” – or at least move it somewhere less disruptive – and the album’s journey becomes considerably more coherent.

Lucy Khanyan will be live at Jass Club Paris, France 2nd September

Mike Gates

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