On one of their early albums, System of a Down included a hidden bonus track, “Der Voghormya,” mistakenly identified by Entertainment Weekly as “Vietnamese folk music.”
Actually, it was an echo of SoD’s Armenian heritage, a creative arrangement of liturgical music. A traditional version can be heard on Forty Martyrs, recorded in the Armenian community of Syria before the Islamist berserkers of ISIS drove out them out.
The words, resonantly sung by an Armenian Orthodox priest, are elevated by primeval melodies in Near Eastern modes, and emerge as stark messages from the profound silence underlying reality.
