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Baker's Dozen

The Pleasure Of Discomfort: Siavash Amini's Favourite Music
Jennifer Lucy Allan , August 26th, 2020 09:07

Siavash Amini discusses his 13 favourite albums with Jennifer Lucy Allan, including the power of romanticism, weeping over the death of Leonard Cohen, and why Nils Frahm has a lot to answer for. Photo by Selma Pour-Amin

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Einstürzende Neubauten – Halber Mensch


I had this goth phase after the metal phase. It was a six month phase that didn't last long... what can I say, breakups are hard [laughs]. I knew Neubauten through the first two albums, and I didn't follow up because the newer ones didn't speak to me at all. Then I got to reading up on industrial music through my love of noise. It was actually very academic when I got into Neubauten, but it changed me. I think I've always had in my mind that something like this absolutely should exist, between Nine Inch Nails industrial, and a bit of darkness of goth. All wearing black, but at the same time, very well composed. I found myself banging my head to it all the time when I play it. It's like a dance album.

Were you listening to all of these things at home, or were you able to hear like any dance music or industrial music out at the time?

Out of the house, no, but in the house, a lot of industrial music. We were super hardcore NIN fans and we were listening to Killing Joke and NIN and that's it. I'm not going to dunk on the party scene in Iran, but I wasn't so much a part of it, and still am not – I'm not very social person in that manner. But the scene that was gathering and listening to dance music were listening to Daft Punk most of the time.