SIAVASH AMINI - Eidolon

Microtonal music, which uses musical intervals smaller than a semitone compared to the traditional Western tempered system, often comes across as abstruse and hard to grasp. Strange, really, since one could argue it has always existed in some form all over the world, from Indian classical music to Renaissance music to Arabic music. The Iranian Siavash Amini, well aware of this, enriches his prolific discography with "Eidolon", in which he sets out to deepen his knowledge of the 13th-century Persian musician Safi-al-din Urmavi, who used a 17-tone scale as opposed to the 12 tones of the Western system. Amini draws on this alternative musical system, but folds it into a contemporary avant-garde framework.

The three lengthy compositions range from the ten minutes of "Ortus", which opens with electroacoustic textures before moving into dark electronic winds that gradually take on new shades, culminating in a final white noise almost Hecker-esque. A very long organ-like drone opens "Instantia", which then shifts and starts to recall the sonic organ studies of Lawrence English. "Relictio", at fifteen minutes, is perhaps the most fully realized piece, or at least the one packed with the most ideas.

From musique concrète to abstract electroacoustic sound to the endless dark abysses of electronic music, Siavash Amini's music finds a meeting point between the contemporary and Persian music from eight centuries ago. From some angles it's a stretch, from others perhaps a small miracle.

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09/08/2023