Bandcamp Best Experimental Music of 2019 

“as Amini channelled his experience into deep, cavernous sounds that drift between documentary-like realism and abstract expressionism, echoing the hypnagogic state he endured. As a result, Serus is a heavy listen, but it also exudes the calm and reassurance that comes from turning distress into art.” 

Bandcamp Artist Feature

“His creative technique has remained almost unchanged over the past decade or so. Amini still uses a very simple recording setup—essentially just a guitar—alongside a very limited amount of software. What does keeps changing are his influences, which affect his work deeply. “To be able to create, you need to have a lot of inputs. For me, that plays a big role. I try to immerse myself in things I find interesting,” shares Amini. The inspirations range from literature—whether it be poetry, fiction, or  philosophy—to cinema or other music, both contemporary and classical.”

Pitchfork Review

“Amini’s work often flits between chamber instrumentation, sumptuous dark ambient, and head-splitting noise, and he finds the perfect foil in 9T Antiope, who pair electronic glitches and drones with almost shockingly beautiful singing. Together, they conjure a terrifying expanse of blackened buzz over which 9T Antiope vocalist Sara Bigdeli Shamloo slides between classical technique, bluesy affect, and, on the dreamlike “Black as in Burst,” a bone-chilling whisper.”

The Wire Issue 427 Serus Review

“While Amini’s Serus is a significantly darker, denser and more complex exploration of the texture and temporal nature of sound production, it still requires a backstory to be fully understood in relation to the preceding releases. 2017’s Tar concentrated on the collective and the individual unconscious, and the tension between the twa, in the way it (re)produced emotions, sounds and images. Foras the following year intensified this exploration, particularly in relation to the external influence governing our internal responses. Serus meanwhile examines its extreme effects on the composer, as the monstrous drone of opener “A Recollection Of The Disappeared” engulfs its listener in the raw affect of someone who’d experienced a nervous breakdown. This in between state of wakefulness and sleep emerges in orchestral motifs that rise in and out of textured noise on “All That Remained Pt 1” and “All That Remained Pt 2”, while “Semblance” buoys suspended in a cloud of its own grumbling inertia.”

The Wire Issue “Harmistice” Review (click on the link)

Tiny Mixtapes Serus Review

“Amini works in prickly textures, mimicking the crackle of synaptic activity as the brain prepares for sleep. The soundscape eventually deadens around its halfway point, clearing clutter as violin played by Nima Aghiani groans like it’s part of a Haxan Cloak track, then sprawls out, then finds footing, then sprawls out again in cinematic fashion. These dreams are movies, to paraphrase a Built to Spill lyric, and the plot is littered with twists.”

All Music

 “This is a superb album that should please fans of any of the aforementioned genres, and cements the composer’s reputation as an artist of no mean significance”