Apeiron Bound By Costin Chioreanu, Andrew Stout, Michael Calza
Dark psychedelic art is a subgenre of psychedelic art that explores the dark, surreal, and often unsettling aspects of the human psyche. It often features twisted and distorted imagery, vivid colors, and mind blending patterns that are meant to evoke a sense of unease and disorientation in the viewer. The art form is often associated with the counterculture movement of the 1960s and continues to be popular today, particularly in the fields of music, film, and digital art
The music video, titled “My Sweet Stockholm” by Apeiron Bound is a mesmerizing visual journey through a trippy, otherworldly landscape.
From the very start, the video sets a tone of unease and disorientation, with distorted, glitchy images that is flickery. As the music builds, the visuals become more and more intense, with pulsing colors and shapes that twist in time with the beat.
One of the things that is most striking about the video was the attention to detail in the animation. Every frame is packed with complex designs and patterns, and the movement of the visuals is smooth and organic. Despite the hectic and hyperactive pace of the video, it never feels cluttered or overwhelming – each element is carefully placed and choreographed to create a cohesive whole.
The imagery in “My Sweet Stockholm” is heavily inspired by psychedelic and surrealist art. The visuals are often unsettling and bizarre, with distorted faces and writhing tentacles, but there’s also a sense of playfulness to the animation. The video manages to strike a delicate balance between darkness and light, creating a sense of beauty and wonder even in the midst of chaos.
The music in “My Sweet Stockholm” is just as mesmerizing as the visuals. The track, composed by the metal band “Apeiron Bound”, is a haunting combination of ambient textures and pulsing beats. The music ebbs and flows in sync with the animation, building to intense powerful sounds and then gradually move back into quietness.
Overall, “My Sweet Stockholm” is a truly stunning piece of animation. It’s not for the faint of heart, the imagery can be quite intense and unsettling at times, but for those who appreciate the beauty of the weird and the wonderful, it’s a must see. The video is a testament to the power of animation as an art form, and a reminder that sometimes the most heartfelt experiences are the ones that take us outside of our comfort zones.
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About Costin
Born on the 13th of March, 1982, Costin Chioreanu is a Romanian graphic designer, illustrator and video artist. His passion for drawing and his interest in heavy metal music were juxtaposed in the mid 90’s, when he realized that the artworks found in his own collection of bootleg cassettes released in the post-communist era, had to be improved.
Not long after, Costin discovered the urge to play heavy metal music so this is how he got into a deeper level of illustrating music, starting with his own releases. His first official works in terms of illustrations and designs related to the metal music are actually the cassette covers and logos created for his bands’ demos between 1997 and 1999.
Specializing in Graphic Design, with a bachelor’s and a master’s degree at the National University of Arts, in Bucharest, he started his graphic studio in 2003, under the name of TWILIGHT 13 MEDIA. Since then, he has been covering all types of expression regarding music illustration, from covers, posters, merchandise design to filmed or animated videos, live DVD’s, or full concert screenings. Some of his more renowned collaborators are At the Gates, Opeth, Arch Enemy, Darkthrone, Napalm Death, Arcturus, Ulver, Enslaved, Triptykon, Decide, Mayhem, My Dying Bride, Katatonia, Wardruna, Paradise Lost, Sigh, Necrophagia and many others. Most likely he did the video for Horisont’s latest single from the Sudden Death album, Revolution.
Costin Chioreanu is mainly renowned outside the borders of his country, given his power to express the unseen in visual terms. Many around him have been trying to explain the thing which influenced Costin, regarding the way he shows the world those phenomena which don’t appear in the human’s sight. Some say it is his bloodline, thus they credit some of his relatives, who came from Transylvania – that realm which urges us to detect associations with the mystical matters. Others believe that the power of expression arrived once with his existence in the physical world, breaking through that curtain which covers the unfathomable unseen. However, they can all agree a single thing. Chioreanu’s abilities to master the visual dimension go along with the fervour he has felt since childhood towards the most darkened type of music, which is heavy metal. He gradually came to fit among the idols who write gloomy sounds, and today we find him around the highest circles formed by musicians.
Costin is one of the artists who is the first in attacking the egos, being aware of the fact that this act destroys also the view upon himself and his life. The experienced effect can be described as an adjustment of one’s reflection that was distorted to some extent.
Regarding Costin Chioreanu’s musical path, among the long list of albums and soundtracks released, there are a couple of things known about his leaning towards avant-garde metal, and his experiences also include an experimental emphasis through which he built an intense atmosphere fitted with layers of light and darkness. There’s no wonder that he wrote and recorded music along with “key charac- ters” in the international scene, such as Attila Csihar (Sunn O))), Tormentor), David Tibet (Current 93), Rune Eriksen (ex-Mayhem, Aura Noir), Mirai Kawashima (Sigh) or Kimo Helen (Hexvessel). We might envision thus an ambient structure while trying to intertwine the information about the two musicians, but at the same time, they can easily get unpredictable.
