Siavash Amini - FORAS (2018)

On »FORAS«, Siavash Amini further intensifies his sonic studies of the relations between the individual mind and its interplay with the environments that surround it. After 2017’s »TAR«, »FORAS« is the Iranian sound artist’s second album for Hallow Ground and his sixth solo album in only six years. While Amini has recently been collaborating extensively with other artists, the four tracks see him returning to his singular approach that blends harsh electronic noise with lush granular synthesis and classical compositional techniques.Over the course of roughly 38 minutes, the album navigates between different and at times seemingly contradictory moods, thus mirroring its underlying concept.

»FORAS«, meaning »outside« in Latin, explores how individual sorrow relates to and is triggered by space. Similar to what the late theorist Mark Fisher has dubbed the »eerie«, the LP focuses on how landscapes and buildings connect to and transform the inside world and thus the psychological experience. Amini made this concept his method, doing field recordings in places over which a »deep sense of darkness« looms, as he himself puts it – liminal places that act as passageways into the collective subconscious. »May it be by passing through a space haunted by collective memories of loss or tragedy, or by means of interpersonal dialogue, or even a memory of such events in each individual’s mind,« elaborates Amini on the starting points from which »FORAS« dives further and further into the darkness.

It is no surprise then that the incredibly lush soundscapes of »FORAS« evoke distance as much as depth. However, just like Amini has crossed from the outside into the inside world to document what is to be found in between, his sixth album provides more than what is to be found on its surface. The complex sound world of »FORAS« is haunted also by hope and compassion.