Siavash Amini

Iranian composer and musician Siavash Amini produces material stretching from delicate ambient works and crisp IDM—marked by his singular atmospheric guitar textures—to abrasive drones and austere modern classical compositions. Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Mirror, Dostoyevsky’s novels, and T.S. Eliot’s poetry have shaped his approach. Standout recordings comprise the richly atmospheric Till Human Voices Wake Us from 2014 and the austere, unyielding TAR issued in 2017. Joint projects have linked him with Rafael Anton Irisarri, Saåad, Matt Finney, and 9T Antiope. American Dreams Records released Eremos, a collection of fragile electroacoustic pieces drawing on Iranian philosopher-poet Ibn Sina’s novel Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, in 2023.

Three albums surfaced in 2012: the glitch-laden Spotty Surfaces, credited with Hessam Ohadi and Nima Pourkarimi, plus The Waterfront and the ambient Storm Leaves Us Quietly. After Till Human Voices Wake Us, Amini’s output grew harsher and more processed, folding in orchestral elements alongside granular techniques; Futuresequence put out both What Wind Whispered to the Trees and Subsiding. Familial Rot, his initial partnership with spoken-word artist Matt Finney, arrived in 2016. During 2017 Hallow Ground issued the solo album TAR, and Amini appeared on Rafael Anton Irisarri’s The Shameless Years. Opal Tapes released another Finney collaboration, Gospel, in 2018. Three further albums followed in 2019: Harmistice on Hallow Ground with 9T Antiope, Second Shift with Finney again on Opal Tapes, and Serus, Amini’s first release for Room40, which also reissued remastered editions of What Wind Whispered to the Trees and Subsiding.

All Lanes of Lilac Evening, a nature-themed ambient project with Saåad, opened 2020. It was succeeded by the standalone track “Lardaskan” alongside Irisarri and the solo recording A Mimesis of Nothingness. A Trail of Laughters appeared in 2021, while Denovali issued The Faded Orbit, a collaboration with SaffronKeira. Songs for Sad Poets, realized with philosopher, professor, and author Eugene Thacker, emerged in 2022. The 18-minute Not Yet Plant-Life, No Longer Flesh was issued early in 2023; that year also brought the album Eidolon and the 18-minute composition The Sweat of Earth.