Heathen Harvest:  Greetings, and thank you very much for accepting this interview! Your music fascinates me in a way that very few artists manage to grasp. How did this very experimental form of avant-garde jazz and ambient come to be created? Was there a great deal of planning behing the song writing on "Chiaroscuro" or did it all just kind of fall into place? Much of the album is incredibly complex in nature.

Alexander Senko:  I’ve tried to combine those things which I like doing in music. I always loved jazz: unpredictedness of improvisations, the sound of brass instruments and some ‘angular’, ‘awkward’ rhythmic – all of this affects me in just a magical way!

On the other hand, I like very much to synthesize electronic sounds, play with synthesizers’ handles, build chains of different algorithms of sound treatment or to change sounds of acoustic instruments, to get from them completely new sounds as a result. As a sound producer I like to create acoustic environments which like paintings would have a perspective, a foreground, middle- and back grounds, to ‘move’ instruments back and forth, to the ‘left’ and to the ‘right’. That is why I wanted to record such an album where I would combine jazz improvisation and the created unusual sound environment.

The bases of the compositions were pre-composed, but their developments were composed right in the process of recording. We didn’t have any long rehearsals. Our usual day: I recorded a part of an instrument – of guitar, synthesizer or bass. Then our drummer Oleg Pankratov would come. After having rehearsed for a few times we recorded drums, then discussed the result to see if we need to change either the way he plays or the way I’d composed.

‘Chiaroscuro’ is a ‘studio album’; compositions were finished only after everything was recorded. For example, Dead Drunk Dracula was completely changed during the recording process. In this composition I recorded acoustic guitar, bass and drums first. The result was an uneven, ‘drunken’ rhythm. I couldn’t leave it in that condition but on the other hand I wanted to preserve the resulted mood. So I wrote a computer sequence repeating the ‘drunken’ rhythm, where the tempo changes slightly with every tact, eliminated drums and bass altogether, and left the guitar only in a few places.

Only in one composition – “For Polina” – there is no improvisation. The trumpeter Pavel Zhulin played my melody adding just a few touches.

Modern technologies have played a very big role in the album creation. In ‘Chiaroscuro’ I haven’t used one readymade synthesizer set. All sounds were created for particular compositions, they already included rhythm and tonality of the compositions.

The trumpeter Pavel Zhulin is trained as a musician. He graduated from The Moscow institute of culture. He has played with many different pop-music performers, as well as with jazz orchestras and rock groups. He is very self-exigent musician and is often invited by Russian music stars. On the other hand he is definitely a man of jazz, and I believe he can become a worldwide star.

Oleg Pankratov and Tatiana Ipatova played in ‘World music’ group. Stas Ignatjev is an uncompromising avant-gardist.

I never had one favorite music style. The musicians I like represent nearly all music genres. For example, in jazz I like very much John Coltraine, Gil Evans, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus; in blues-rock – Jimi Hendriks and Stevie Ray Vaughan, gothic group “Blood Axis” and so on. At home I often listen to jazz or pop music, also Russian underground music. My friends often ask me: Why don’t you keep up with new tendencies in music? I tell them that if I experience influence of modern artists I will start resembling them. Contemporary music interests me rather from the point of new possibilities of work with sounds.

HH:  Did you have much musician training in school? If so, where did you attend school, and did your experimentalist nature with music begin here?

AS:  I took piano lessons and taught myself to play the acoustic guitar. I’ve played lots of classical guitar music. On the electric guitar I played lots of blues, jazz and rock. I exercised for many hours a day. That was then when I fell in love with half-tone chords, which create a sort of unsteadiness, allusion. These sounds remind me questions up in the air, a door to uncertainty. The same feeling was produced by scales on which ethnic music is build, e.g. the oriental scale. But I also studied a lot of the modern harmony.

Then I got interested with the nature of the sound itself, its vibrations, methods of its arrangements and synthesis of new sounding. So I graduated from the Gnesins Musical Institute in Moscow as a sound producer.

HH:  There is also quite a presence of ethnic music within "Chiaroscuro".  Where did you come up with the idea to add this to the music? It really added a lot more to the atmosphere than one may expect.

AS:  This has happened on its own, without any preliminary thought. That was spooky in a way. We just happened to end up with oriental theme without any planning or preparation. I’d hardly ever listened to oriental music, I only knew its theory, its scale. And I’m pleased with the result because I like the oriental style. I think we’ve got interesting results.

We owe the ethnic notes to the singer. In fact, she invited herself to the project, turning up when we already were in the middle of the process. But that is exactly how I imagine my ideal job: I see creation as an open system where every participant adds his/her own vision, own interpretation, which doesn’t have to coincide with my own ideas.

On the other hand, elements of ethnic music are very popular today so this seems natural to hear them on our disc.

HH:  Is there much attention for your unique form of music to be found in Russia? Are there many more experimental artists such as yourself in your country?

AS:  There are few people interested in our music here, at least to my knowledge. Maybe in Russia it’s a matter of time.

In Russia there are many fantastic musicians. The average level of performers is quite high but there are very few interesting composers. I like musicians who have appeared quite a long time ago, 10-15 and more years ago. For example, the saxophonist Vladimir Chekasin, the composer Eduard Artemiev, who wrote lots of film scores, the pianist Anton Batogov, a wonderful group ‘Nikolay Kopernik’.

Lately in our country we can observe a paradoxical situation: there are much more fresh ideas in pop music than among musicians who consider themselves experimentalists. Jazz or instrumentalist rock performers are good but not innovative. Too often their every other disc is full of variations on the same ideas, (one idea for each disc). This can be observed in other arts – cinema, theater, or visual arts. Artists endlessly exploit once found pattern, (the art of transformation/reincarnation is forgotten). But of course music is not sport and one is not expected to always deliver achievements in novelty or virtuosity. First of all music must be beautiful!

HH:  From where do you get your band name Joan Silver Pin? Does the album's title "Chiaroscuro"
stick generally with the english definition of the word (Light & Shade)? Or does it hold a deeper meaning for you?

AS:  In the beginning our project had another name consisted of Russian words in English transliteration (“Jazz Srednej Polosy”). The RAIG producer Igor Gorely suggested to change the name leaving the same abbreviation JSP. Allegedly he found the name ‘Joan Silver Pin’ in an ancient text. We liked it because it alludes to magic and alchemy, to people’s attempts to go beyond mundane reality… But next time you see “JSP” it might mean something totally different!

The name of the disc is another invention of Igor Gorely. He helped me to formulate what I wished to express. For me the word ‘chiaroscuro’ means first of all a process of transition from light to darkness, a condition when objects’ outlines become blur or vice versa become apparent. This is a border state of things. The second composition’s name (which cites Chris Catler, an English musician, producer and journalist) further explores this meaning.

HH:  I have read that opium plays some sort of a major part in Joan Silver Pin's music. Can you explain this rumor? Or is it merely a comparison to the drug's actual nature?

AS:  For me opium is a symbol. During its long history it has developed from a useful medicine to a harmful drug. For people who take the opium there is ‘something gained, something lost’: they discover other worlds but lose connection with the reality. This is like in any creative profession: when one really dedicates oneself to arts one discovers new possibilities of the world perceptions (which is why, by the way, I don’t have to take drugs to get high), but one is sure to miss out from other parts of life. And the more one is dedicated to the arts and creation and the more one is successful in it the more such losses.

HH:  What were the ideas behind the artwork and unique packaging for "Chiaroscuro"? What is the purpose of the ink scribbles?

AS:  The disc’s design was wholly the RAIG’s idea. In fact it took quite a while for their artist to come up with his vision of our music, it nearly halted the whole process! I don’t know what the scribbles might mean – let each artwork contain its own mystery!

HH:  What are your primary religious and political beliefs? Do you put any of these ideas into your music?

AS:  I don’t belong to any political party. But I believe that all of the world’s events affect my life and work even if I don’t think about them. Neither am I a religious person. I don’t like that religions divide people. I find something interesting in each of them (religions) because I look at them as world pictures only, never as dogmas.

I guess your question arises from the name of the composition ‘The Arabic Nightmare’. Usually people connect it to the recent events on the Middle East. They are mistaken. This composition is inspired by a book of the same name by an English writer Rob Irwing. It relates about Middle ages Cairo, magic and mysteries of human mind.

HH:  Has your partnership with R.A.I.G. been a good one? Have you been happy with their support of your music?

AS:  The fact that I’m giving you this interview I owe to the RAIG. They do what we never will – distribute the disc together with information about JSP across the world. When the disc saw the light something we never thought of has happened while some of our dreams didn’t come true.

HH:  Will we see more releases from Joan Silver Pin in the near future? If so, where do you see the music evolving to?

AS:  We had wanted to record our next album immediately after the issue of ‘Chiaroscuro’, but suddenly realised that we should not rush. At first, I wanted to see listeners’ reactions. I wanted to see to what extent my interests coincide with others’ interests. Secondly, we need to accumulate new musical ideas. We don’t want to repeat ourselves recording a disc reminiscent of ‘Chiaroscuro’. Thirdly, and very sadly, our singer Tatyana Ipatova has died in an accident. Lastly, I’ve discovered for myself new technology of working with sound (and of composing), which are used by electro-acoustic musicians. I’m still learning but it is so fascinating that I have to find a way to apply it in my next disc!

I’ve moved my studio’s equipment to a little town of Aprelevka outside of Moscow (where my wife has a country house). In the beginning of the 20^th century Aprelevka became a birthplace for one of the first Russian vinyl discs factories, which during the Soviet times was to become the largest one in the country. Though it is defunct now it influences me reminding of the great musicians of the past.

I continue to experiment with musicians who visit me here. I have recorded already the bases of a few compositions for the next album. I am full of ideas. I would like to develop ideas of the great Russian composers of the 20^th century Igor Stravinsky and Sergey Prokofiev. I would like to turn to my old love – electric blues, and of course I cannot “avoid” jazz, rock and pop music! Perhaps the new album will include a development, ‘the second part’ of one of compositions from the first album. I plan to use new instruments. The future will show which plans come to reality.