Darone Sassounian gasped when he finally found the record.
For years, Sassounian had been on the hunt for “Sunrise,” a 1979 album from Armenian musician Avo Haroutiounian. The album was recorded and released through a local label, Parseghian Records, after Haroutiounian had settled in Los Angeles.
But when Sassounian, a Montebello-based DJ, stumbled upon it, he was far from home. At the time, Sassounian was digging through records at a friend’s shop in Bourj Hammoud, a Lebanese town outside of Beirut known for its large ethnic Armenian population.
“I’ve never even seen one online,” says Sassounian on a recent phone call. “I found that record that was made in Los Angeles about 7000 miles east of where it was produced.”
Now Sassounian is sharing one of the songs from that album, the incomparably funky “Tears on My Eyes,” on the compilation “Silk Road: Journey of the Armenian Diaspora (1971-1982),” available now digitally and on vinyl via record label Terrestrial Funk. The album is a labor of love that brings together music recorded by Armenian diasporan artists between 1971 and 1982.
It’s an eclectic collection that shows the breadth of Armenian music from this era. “Ammenaïn Serdov (De Tout Couer) (With All My Heart)” from the French-Armenian singer Marten Yorgantz is a slice of electronic funk with a nod to Aram Khachaturian’s “Sabre Dance.” “Taparoum Enk (We’re Wandering)” is a psychedelic cut from Harout Pamboukjian, the beloved Armenian singer and longtime Angeleno.
“Silk Road” has already garnered support from tastemakers like German house producer Motor City Drum Ensemble, Beats In Space DJ Tim Sweeney and L.A. online radio station Dublab.
A musician since childhood who later turned towards DJing, the 28-year-old Sassounian played regularly at local venues Club Tee Gee and The Standard pre-pandemic and also runs the music management company Rocky Hill. His tastes lean towards disco, soul and boogie from the 1970s and ’80s, along with 1990s house music. Several years ago, while working at indie label Ubiquity Records, he came across compilations of disco, funk, psychedelic and related styles that spotlight a global array of artists. He wondered why he hadn’t seen any similar collections focusing on Armenian artists.
So Sassounian, who is of Armenian heritage, decided to take on the task himself.
It was a quest. Armenian music from this era is hard to find. Sassounian says releases often weren’t pressed in large quantities. Some recordings may have also been lost in the midst of war or political turmoil. That is the case for a lot of music recorded in Lebanon during the 1970s and 1980s, he says.
“A lot of the master tapes are destroyed because of the civil war,” Sassounian explains.
His first find came in 2016 via his father’s collection of cassettes. The song “Sev Sev Achair (Black Black Eyes)” was from Jozeph Sefian, an Armenian singer from Iran who recorded, and eventually settled, in Los Angeles. A month or so later, Sassounian began working on the project in earnest and booked plane tickets to Beirut and Paris, two cities with larger Armenian music communities, to dig for records.
He sought out records in the course of his U.S. travels too, finding a “crazy collection” in Las Vegas. He estimates finding between 100 and 150 records on his searches. The final cut for “Silk Road,” so named for historic Armenia’s position along the famed trading route, features seven tracks from six artists. The digital version includes two edits of songs from the compilation, one from Sassounian and another from New York DJ duo Fundido.
In all, it took about three years for Sassounian to find and license the music. In the process, he was able to get to know some of the artists, or the heirs of the artists, behind the songs. Sassounian says that he was struck by how the music reflects not just the artists’ Armenian identity, but the countries in which the music was made.
“A lot of these records have a fusion of those sounds,” he says.
The fusion points to the history of Armenians, who formed diasporan communities across the globe in the aftermath of the Armenian Genocide. The artists featured on “Silk Road” are about two generations removed from the events of 1915 and reflect the geographic diversity of Armenians as well. Eddy Jeghelian was based in Australia. Adiss Harmandian (spelled Harmandyan on “Silk Road” to correspond with the spelling on the original release) began his career in Beirut but relocated to Los Angeles, where he lived until death in 2019.
In light of that, the compilation also has a powerful message. “Because the culture still continues, the music continues, the people continue,” Sassounian says. “The people continue to live along with the music.”
Sassounian dedicates the album to diasporan communities, whether Armenian or of another ethnicity, who have been impacted by “systemic racism, slaughter and injustice.” In a note on the vinyl edition, he writes, “the rhythm of all diasporas must continue.”