Incredible Strange Culture

: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