Back in December, System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian announced the release date for his upcoming solo EP Elasticity. Now, Serj has revealed the full details of the EP, as well as the first single via a new music video.
Serj Tankian’s Elasticity arrives March 19th via Alchemy Recordings, BMG. “When I conceived possibly doing another record with the guys from System of a Down a few years back, I started working on a set of songs that I arranged in rock format for that purpose,” says Serj. “As we weren’t able to see eye to eye on the vision going forward with an SOAD album, I decided to release these songs under my moniker.”
Originally scheduled for Fall 2020 and later February 2021, the album was a labor of love for the singer. “I decided to finish [the songs on the EP] myself and release them,” Tankian said in a recent interview. “And they are really interesting and beautiful songs…going from really heavy type of System-esque type of music to really beautiful, ballady, including pianos and string arrangements and stuff like that. So, it’s quite diverse for just five songs. And thematically, it’s quite diverse as well — a song about terrorism; a song about protests in Armenia years ago; a song about my son Rumi, kind of also cut with the poet Rumi, in a way — it’s an homage to the poet Rumi and his namesake, basically, in a way. And a few other pieces. So it’s kind of all around the place, as everything I do is.”
Directed by Vlad Kaptur, the video for “Elasticity” centers around a woman sitting in line at some sort of facility, though what that facility is and why she’s sitting there is never clear. Along the way, art is destroyed and empties are pissed in, all seemingly in a grand metaphor for modern existence. While not the usual light-and-scream-fest that SOAD fans might be used to, the production value of the video is pretty excellent, and actress Sasha Bortich does a solid job of getting across her role’s outrage and confusion.
Check out the video for “Elasticity” below:
Serj Tankian’s Elasticity is available for preorder. Check out the full tracklisting and cover art for the EP below.
- Elasticity
- Your Mom
- Rumi
- How Many Times?
- Electric Yerevan
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Words by Chris Krovatin
