Ambient Iranienne

Annotation :

" In ‘What Wind Whispered to the Trees’ Amini references characters from Dostoevsky's 'The Brothers Karamazov' and 'The Devils’. Conveying a sense of loss and of longing from opening track, the album unravels chapter by chapter holding the listener in a dark, dense and poetic tale, as if translating Dostoevsky into musical form. The raw string melodies, fine tonal auroras and contrasting heavy drones are expanded and deepened by stunning mastering from Lawrence English.
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Annotation :

" Prominent Iranian artist Siavash Amini continues a triptych of works with ‘Subsiding’, an album of instrumental ambient drone. His most full and detailed sound to date illustrates Amini’s ability to bring together modern classical composition with that of controlled noise, granular synthesis, and atmospheric soundscape. Both monolithic and micro sound sculptures coexist within a perfect balance, a mix which makes for an all encompassing listen across the audio spectrum, funereal yet uplifting.
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Annotation :

"Superposition de nappes, intégration de quelques samples parlés, atmosphère un rien inquiétante née de la présence de traits de guitare électrique venant transpercer l’opacité des textures : la manière dont sont constituées les six pistes de Should Have Been Done By Now ne déconcertera guère l’auditeur habitué des travaux ambient. Sans surprise également, le travail sur le flux et le reflux opéré par Nima Pourkarimi qui joue sur les variations d’intensité de ses nappes et leur légère saturation par endroits. De même, aucun étonnement à retrouver une alternance de titres longs (douze minutes) et de morceaux plus ramassés (quatre minutes).

Au milieu de cet ensemble très homogène, mais un peu attendu, le morceau-titre permet à une soyeuse guitare électrique de se déployer. Ample et suave, la six-cordes se trouve parée, à partir du milieu du morceau, d’une couche de saturation proche d’une nappe shoegaze du plus bel effet. Même capacité à apporter grésillements et perturbations sur une base plus traditionnelle dans Fuckin’ Mental, morceau de clôture d’un disque dont on aurait aimé, donc, qu’il se déroulât davantage comme ses deux derniers titres."

Annotation :

"Siavash Amini (Tehran-based musician) returns to Umor Rex with a collaboration with Matt Finney. Like in Till human voices wake us (Umor Rex 2014), where poems by T.S. Eliot were the starting point for the compositions, in Familial Rot each track tries to capture the emotion inside the words of Matt, and to score the images created with those vocal elements. With spontaneous words springing from an improvisational exercise. Siavash Amini expands the scope of the words with refined ambient and drone introspection. Even if the opulent sonic textures and the neo-classic suggestions signature of Amini’s work are here, it is all rather different this time around. There is a larger focus on catharsis, and greater doses of distortion, than in his previous works. Familial Rot is intense and affective. The sounds are made with electric double bass, electric guitar, piano and digital process."

Annotation :

"The lush and detailed ambient by Siavash Amini meets the rare and precious sounds of the saxophone by Zenjungle in this unexpected, yet extraordinary collaboration.

Enhanced memories from imaginary locations find here the perfect soundtrack in shredded guitar melodies, erratic brass improvisations and unstable ambient pads ; mutating soundscapes for everchanging recollections, vanishing into the most lacrymal and moving lullaby you could ever wish for"

Annotation :

" TAR is an inquiry of how fears and hopes of an individual can be related to a broader state of mind shared collectively. Making it`s starting point the expression of these feelings in dreams and nightmares of each individual, and translating the images, feelings and textures into sound.

After a series of noisier and less melodic albums, this release catches the active listener with a subtle tension created by oscillating sounds somewhere between discomfort and transcendence. Even if some parts of TAR are quite disturbing, the record gets never simply dark. There is a much more sophisticated attitude that deludes us into a deeper act of listening and provokes maybe even some new synapse formations. "

Annotation :

" a contemplative melancholy that pervades the record, even a sense of desolation, as evidenced by some of the early tracks like ‘Kuchiniwa’ and ‘Reminiscence’. But, it also simmers with hypnotic beats, deep liquid bass lines, glitchy textures, melodic synths, and haunting vocal samples, all of which inject serene and scintillating energy into the mix. The juxtaposing of these aesthetics is both effective and mesmerizing, especially on tracks such as ‘Intensive Collectivity’ and ‘Ikigami’. And, when it all coalesces and blossoms into a cinematic swell of emotion, as it does on ‘Of Rust’, it is breathtakingly beautiful. "

Annotation :

Dense, darkly cinematic drone works from Tehran via Newcastle