Meet Siavash Amini: Creating Beauty from Dissonance

Discover Siavash Amini, the Iranian experimental composer who creates haunting dark ambient soundscapes from Tehran.

The Artist Who Refuses to Be Your “Iranian Brian Eno”

In the sprawling landscape of experimental music, few artists navigate cultural complexity with the precision and defiance of Siavash Amini. Based in Tehran, this Iranian composer has spent over a decade crafting what Pitchfork describes as work that “often flits between chamber instrumentation, sumptuous dark ambient, and head-splitting noise.” But Amini himself bristles at easy categorizations, particularly the lazy comparison to Brian Eno that has followed him. His music demands more nuanced listening—and rewards it with uncomfortable beauty that speaks to both local and global experiences of displacement and transformation.

Born in 1987 and raised in the port town of Bandar Abbas, Amini’s journey began in the underground metal scene, trading tapes of Metallica and Guns N’ Roses as part of what he describes as “something really underground that we did.” This foundation in heavy music never fully left his work, even as he evolved into one of the most compelling voices in contemporary dark ambient and experimental composition.

Essential Albums: A Journey Through Amini’s Dark Cosmos

Till Human Voices Wake Us (2014) - The Breakthrough

This album of “fragile ambient sketches and gentle drones” was Amini’s breakthrough moment. After disappointing experiences with Iranian labels, he spent a year emailing international labels before Daniel Castrejón from Umor Rex responded. “This release alone started me on this path that I am on today,” Amini recalls. “If this album hadn’t been released by Umor Rex, I wouldn’t have made any other music afterwards.” The album’s delicate textures and haunting atmospheres established his signature approach of finding beauty in bleakness.