System of a Down’s Serj Tankian Releases Collection of Cinematic Videos with Poetry
Press release:
System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian has released Cool Gardens Poetry Suite, a rich collection of four elegant cinematic works layered with intimate recital of poetry performed by Tankian. The Suite is available now on all major streaming platforms here.
The verses, which are migrated from his first ever published poetry book of the same name, compliment the musical landscape. Tankian explains, “Cool Gardens Poetry Suite animates the book to where the words come off the page and dance into the auditory canals of listeners sweetened by intimate musical landscapes.” In total, he narrates 87 poems over the nearly 48 minutes of music, weaving his way through a spectrum of topics ranging from humorous to sullen.
Cool Gardens Poetry Suite is accompanied with videos by visual artist David Bradford, a previous collaborative partner on other Tankian projects. Bradford’s visuals quite literally animate pixelated paint onto digital canvas as viewers are caravanned across their screens via Tankian’s soundtrack and the gradual unveiling of his visual compliment.
The video for “Cinematic Piano Theme (With Poetry)” was released a few weeks ago and is now accompanied with the full bevy of tracks from Cool Gardens Poetry Suite. Rolling Stone debuted the “’Disarming Time: A Modern Piano Concerto (With Poetry)’ video yesterday, saying it “further animates and complements Tankian’s mix of music and poetry.”
Cool Gardens Poetry Suite tracklist:
- Cinematic Piano Theme (With Poetry)
- Les Melodies (With Poetry)
- Percussion (With Poetry)
- Disarming Time: A Modern Piano Concerto (With Poetry)
Tankian has slated a multitude of additional music releases for later this year. Up next is an assemblage of 25 cinematic compositions that roam through classical (Illuminate) and modern (Violent Violins) soundscapes. The release will be called Cinematique and split up into two collections released at the same time on August 6. Before the end of year, listeners can also expect two film soundtrack releases from Tankian, for Truth To Power and I Am Not Alone, both being documentaries that the composer produced and scored.
