:ACHTUNG
BABY!:TEN YEARS OF MADNESS:
"Und solang du das nicht hast,
Dieses stirb und werde,
Bist du nur ein truber gast
Auf der dunklen erde"
Goethe, "Sagt es niemand"
FROM THE BEGINNING, THIS WEBSITE'S IDEA (AS ALL OF ACHTUNG BABY!
ACTIVITY) WAS TO GIVE RUSSIAN AUDITORY MORE IMPRESSIONS AND TO
SHOW THE MOST INTERESTING SOUND INNOVATIVE IDEAS AND CULTURAL
MANIFESTS FROM ALL AROUND THE WORLD, TO TELL ABOUT THEIR
CREATORS, AS WELL AS THE BEST IDEAS CONCERNING THE MOST EXITING
MUSICAL IDEOLOGICAL TENDENTIONS AROUND US. THIS IS OUR PERSONAL
AND SUBJECTIVE VISION, AND WE WOULD LIKE TO MAKE THIS PLACE AS
THE FREE AND OPEN INFO-DISCUSSION SPACE FOR ALL INTERESTED IN
THAT KIND OF CULTURAL SOUND IDEOLOGY.
ACHTUNG
BABY! was set up in 1988 in Rostov-on-Don, South of Russia, North
Caucasus, as one of the first special musical/information
ideological and independent projects in the ex-Soviet mass-media
and sort of active propaganda, promotion and reviewing different
worlds of so-called underground and experimental music. It was
and still is realisation of creative ambitions and professional
interest into the incredible strange cultures and aesthetics, the
work of one person - painter and graphic artist, ex-musician and
musical journalist IGOR VAGANOV. Besides music Achtung Baby!
included enigmatic spirit of psychotic literature,
socio-philosophic consciousness, underground movie, absurd
theatre and other dramatic fragments of cultural-historical Decay
and Decline in the final XX - the end of time.
After the well-known zines "Rock-Opo" (Rock in
Opposition) and "Kryk" (The Scream) that was "the
most full and objective encyclopedia of musical-cultural radical
life of 90th at that time" (in opinion of "Gold
Underground. 1967-1994. The Encyclopedia of Russian musical
self-publishing ('zine') editions", Moscow, 1994), ACHTUNG
BABY! was born as a special sort of cultural opposition and
regular weekly press-radio-TV review for active propaganda and
promotion of radical extreme and experimental sound cultures from
all over the World in the vein of ritual industrial soundscapes
and powerful atmospheres of ambient noir claustrophobia,
provocative technological transmutations, sacral ancient and
apocalyptic folk, intensive noise electro-collages, darkest
occult gothic sacrifices and pre-Millenium tension, and soon
became popular among different people, as so it helped them to
know much new about the works of incredible artists, their inner
thoughts, sound ideology and creative world-vision, but also
about the music which they couldn't find and knew about from the
traditional mass-media.
Since
1993 till 1997 AB! had special time at the local radio and
permanent exclussive column in popular Rostov newspaper. Since
1996 ACHTUNG BABY! was broadcasting in Europe via Radio Hundred,
Amsterdam, with good help of our dear friends from well-known
industrial/experimental Dutch label Staalplaat. In 1998 Achtung
Baby! released series of special secret events dedicated to the
10 year anniversary as "ten years of idealism, addiction for
strange, extreme cultures in sounds, prints and pictures"
(Donna Klemm, Artware Audio, Germany) and first edition of the
anniversary double-tape compilation "Ten Years of Madness
(behind the Iron Curtain)" as the first so level experiment
with that kind of music and publishing activity here in Russia
really - included 19 wonderful bands from Russia, Europe, Japan,
Australia and America. Year later the second coming of epic sound
manuscript "Ten Years of Madness..." was presented by
Achtung Baby! as a kind of perceptions from the environment world
in the Millennium' eve in the double CDs format and included more
great names from around the globe, all exclusive and previously
unreleased music and different line-up from previous
tape-version.
WE
WOULD LIKE TO THANK ALL OUR DEAR FRIENDS, COMRADS and ADHERENTS
WHO ALL THE OUR MAD YEARS WERE GIVING THEIR SO IMPORTANT
INDIVIDUAL VISION, THOUGHTS, SUPPORT AND GREAT INSPIRATION FOR
OUR SMALL MODEST MISSION - OUR ACTIVITY, BUT ALSO PERSONAL
DEVELOPMENT ALL THESE LONG YEARS. AND THIS SITE IS A SMALL BUT
IMPORTANT TRIBUTE OF RESPECT TO THEIR IMMORTAL BURNING SOULS.
CONSOLIDATION IS OUR WEAPON, INDIVIDUALITY IS A WAY
INSANITY IS FREEDOM, COMFORMITY IS DEATH!
HOLY MOTHER RUSSIA, december 1997
CONTACT:
ACHTUNG
BABY!
P.O.BOX 2218
344038 ROSTOV-ON-DON
RUSSIA
E-MAIL:igo_ab@mail.ru