Genre: Experimental Ambient / Avant-garde / World/Ethnic / Jazz

Additional Notes: CD has been released in a multi-paneled sleeve with button to hold in CD.

01 Dead Drunk Dracula
02 Chiaroscuro (Slipping Across that Twilight Zone)
03 Mere Words
04 Four Crossings
05 Projection
06 For Paulina
07 LVT
08 The Arabian Nightmare
09 Throughout

Quite simply put, I am a fan of any avant-garde music that comes my way. I do not care about what the music itself encompasses as long as it meets the standards of being tasteful, talented, and and pushes hard on the boundaries of the music that we see today even in the underground. And when I say I don't appreciate tasteful bands, I am speaking of the likes of Mindless Self Indulgence. Lords of Acid did it better the first time around anyway. No, I speak of bands like Sprawlcosm, Ensoph, and Unexpect, from the genre of metal alone. Now to this list I add the lovely Joan Silver Pin. There was a strong appreciation for this band, and their label R.A.I.G., that was formed long before I put the CD into my system. The artwork and unique casing of the album alone would make it worth purchase to me in any store. Beautiful in a was that was rather disturbing to me, the design for the artwork was filled with vintage-esque paintings of children that resemble now-a-days china dolls. The disturbing part was the seemingly random black scribbles throughout the casing. Scratching out the eyes of several, as well as the mouth of one, the artwork successfully creates a foreboding atmosphere prior to any listening experience.

Keep in mind, that while I say the phrase "Avant-garde" very vaguely, it is a loosely used term here. Joan Silver Pin does not, in fact, create anything new that has not been done or heard before. It is their methods that really put the spotlight on them. This group of incredibly talented musicians and artists takes genres that have been known to us for many years, deconstructs them piece by piece, and reconstructs an entirely new image out of various aspects of each. For many artists, this would be a recipe for absolute disaster. But, for Joan Silver Pin, Chiaroscuro seems to be a work of art that is uncannily representative of the experimentalist in us all. If every human on this planet allowed themselves to open their mind and not view anything in a negative light for a few minutes every day, they could allow many things into their life to change and manipulate their perspectives. For instance, as a metalhead, I would have never found the genre Trip Hop that I love so much had I never opened my mind to the likes of Portishead and Cinephile. Now my perspective on writing music has completely changed in the last few months due to these experiences. Chiaroscuro thus forces one to leave behind all expectations of what music is and should be, and puts the listener in a seat where they can merely sit back and hear the music for what it is: art in its' purist form.

The music itself is all over the charts. For instance, the album opens with almost cheesey Casio-styled "Halloween album" keyboards. This obviously creates a thought of badly-done Ambient, but the album quickly evolves into an experimental monster. As track flows to track, we are thrown into a world not held up by walls. Chiaroscuro is reminds me of wind. As it blows through our hair and against our bodies, we catch different sensations and different scents in the air that encompasses us. Just like this, the sounds and elements in the music created are never still and consistently changing and flowing through one another. As one moment I am listening to a very jazzy Trumpet lead, it can and does flow into an ethnic/indian vocal sound seemingly without any effort whatsoever.

Much of this album seems almost improvised. Free-style jazz ambient may be one way of describing the music heard within. There are minutes of moving beats with vocals and harmonies followed by minutes of downtempo ambient with jazz mixtures. To any experimentalist out there, this album truely is a rare gem. To other musicians, it may be just another band throwing way too many elements into one pot. Regardless of what your opinion is, there is one fact that cannot be argued with. That is, Joan Silver Pin is an entity made up of several human artists. It is tied together by brilliant musicians who wish nothing more than to create what they love the most: their music. To those interested in picking this up, I urge you to do so. Chiaroscuro was a wonderful experience for me, and yet another one to push on my limits as a musician in my personal life. It has also been yet another Russian masterpiece to back my feelings that Russia is a country unrivaled in their ability to put out quality talent-filled music. You just can't beat the likes of Joan Silver Pin, Autumn Rain Melancholy, and Arkona.