To fully appreciate Lara Sarkissian’s mesmerizing Disruption, you’d have to know a little about Armenian mythology. A filmmaker and electronic musician of Iranian-Armenian descent, Sarkissian works to bring Armenian stories into the fore. Growing up in San Francisco in a community of immigrants, Armenian music was both everywhere (taught at school, sung in church, blasted through speakers at neighborhood gatherings) and nowhere, all but absent from Western pop. In 2015, she and Esra Canoğulları (aka 8ULENTINA) began throwing parties in Oakland in an attempt to fill the cultural void, booking local, queer, and non-white DJs from transnational diasporas and encouraging them to tell their stories. Those shows eventually birthed Club Chai, now one of the biggest underground collectives in the Bay Area.
As DJs, Sarkissian (who spins as FOOZOOL) and 8ULENTINA are known for ultra-eclectic sets that reach back in time, sampling traditional instruments and vintage records (like funk, disco, and psychedelic rock from 1970’s Turkey and Iran), and adapting Middle Eastern sounds for modern dance floors. Recently, the pair have expanded into their own experimental productions. 8ULENTINA’s Eucalyptus is a patchwork of distorted synths, arcade-game loops, and vigorous drum ‘n’ bass. Disruption, Sarkissian’s first release under her own name, is murkier and more melodic, an ambient-house-dabke hybrid in five shape-shifting tracks.
The EP is billed as the soundtrack to a fictional film inspired by stories from Armenian mythology. We don’t know which stories, aside from clues in a couple song titles. It’s also, Sarkissian said, about her own experiences “communicating with passed family members” and the disruptive conversations and visions that ensued.
These concepts both clarify and confuse the work. While they help to contextualize the music’s folk elements and non-Western roots, they’re also a bit of rabbit hole, with references so far-out to some that they feel empty and disorienting. Do we need to know the story of the ancient god to enjoy the song “Greeted by Tir (Տիր)”? Of course not. But if the goal is to build bridges through cultural storytelling, narrower themes and more specifics would be easier to grasp.
Unlike Sarkissian’s DJ sets, which are club-minded and upbeat, Disruption is designed for more intimate spaces, the kind where you can close your eyes and shuffle around without feeling self-conscious. The vibe is intensely spiritual, a blend of fast, frenetic rhythms from classical Persian percussion, samples of the duduk and zurna (woodwind instruments from the Armenian Highlands), and lo-fi electronic atmospheres sparked with dance-floor energy. At times, it borders on delirious. There are ambient moments in “Tir” that feel utterly out-of-body.
But this is not a chill-out tape. Most of the songs on Disruption are rooted in pummeling house and techno breaks that occur intermittently and somewhat unpredictably, skittering alongside flurries of drum whip-cracks, acid swirls, and cascading synth arpeggios. These dizzying combinations are both thrilling and mildly stressful, like sitting shotgun in a getaway car. You’ve just got to trust that she’s got it under control. On “A Ceremony (for Arax),” the project’s most muscular and structured track, she roars past fits of turbulent drums and whistles like they’re elegant scenery.
Other songs, like “Gnum Գնում (Going) (ft. Margenrot),” unfold like an elaborate obstacle course. Snare drums, cymbals, and quivering howls pile on top of each other in polyrhythmic frames until suddenly, you’re acutely aware of all the layers. It feels like zooming in on a city from a distance; the further in you get with the lens, the more alive it looks.
These dramatic shifts in perspective are Disruption’s real pleasure. Rather than linger in one place, Sarkissian weaves between moods and levels, entire regions and eras. It could be a reflection of those living in the diaspora, wedged between two worlds and searching for connections. Or maybe she’s just piecing together her own identity: old world samples, new school edits, shaped into something entirely new.
