ND:CONTACT-EXHANGE-DOCUMENT

“An artist should be a personality in the first place.He must be decent.I don’t know about myself,but this is what I think of others;if a person is indecent he will invariably be cheating;himself,his country,his nation,his conscience,etc.This has been going on up till now and will continue in the future..The ideal of the artist is to serve the truth or the truth of art.My greatest enemy is fashion…”

The aboveremained words are taken from the interview with the remarkable Lithuanian composer Bronius Katavichuis ,published in the last issue of ND –one of the most influential American editions nowadays,dedicated to alternative and avant garde music,mail-art,hometaping and to radical videoart.With the composer talked the editor of Lithuanian magazine “Tango”-according to my opinion,the best theoretical musical edition in ex-Soviet Union-Robertas Kundrotas with Linas Vyliaudas.One of the wonderful people in my life,always recalling with joy and warmth,Robertas was my first teacher in the world of academic avant garde ,sculpture of sound collage and noise-industrial music ,released ND for me and moreover presented last vinyl release of Kutavichuis,as brilliant part of Lithuania and its modern sound.And now many years after on the pages of ND I’ve met Robertas and Kutavichuis once more.Really unexpected and pleasant meeting.

American legend,ND during many years has been being one of the best informational sources in the rage of art.During 16 years from 1982 edition represents on its pages performance and mail-art to the artists and journalists,visual-poets and movie-video director,musical societies and to multi-media projects,composers and construtors of own musical instruments-everyone,free declarating in unite world creative space the innate own right to individual image and to ground-breaking revolutionary processes in sphere of art.

Daniel Plunkett greatly expressed the aim of edition in couple of word:

“The magazine is a document of the process of exchange and it serves to present artists and ideas which we find vital and interesting.We seek those artists and groups who have overcome established frameworks and normal conventions.We then bring forward these dialogues and hopefully serve as a reference in the process.We are interested in substance.

(Daniel Plunkett,ND#20,1998)

As original document for exchange and contacts among international artistic societies,creating in close aesthetic trends,ND is issued twice during the year and consists of besides analytic articles and interviews big amount of reviews,survey of musical press and radio programs ,a lot of convenientinformation. During this years,among numerous amount of artists,on its pages appeared Controlled Bleeding,Big City Orchestra,John Duncan,V2 Organization,The Haters,Tape-Beatles,Asmus Tietchens,The Hafler Trio,Zoviet-France,John Watermann,Jim O’Rourke,Chris & Cosey,Anne Gilis,Francisco Lopez,Thomas Dimuzio,Ralf Wehowsky,Bernard Gunter,AMM,Christoph Heemann,Robert Rich,Jeff Greinke,Anne Homler…For some years ND became also a label for release the works of such artists as PBK,Vidna Obmana,John Watermann,Maeror Tri,Brume,Klangkrieg,Voice of Eye,Shift,then replenished by tape-releases,focused on new ideas an aural forms of individualistic composers-“NoD series”,”Fragment”( J.Greinke,Francisco Lopez,Alio Die,Chop Shop…) and “Reference”.In 1990(ND # 11) magazine realized first video-issue-unique collection,presenting a glance up to the creative process of thought and to the most interesting fragments of works of different 30es artists.And in the 1997 next double issue(#20)was born with design of famous musician Michael Northam.One of the reasons of delay was presentation of ND’ shop “33 Degrees” in native Austin(August,1995),consistingin its ballythe majority of music,”discovered” on ND’ pages.Next issue includes:Suzanne Lewis,Hail ,british minimalist Jliat and irish composer Roger Doyle; Colin Potter sharing with his memories about joint work with NWW,Organum,ORA and Current 93;Michael Prime,Andrew Chalk.And besides interview with David Jackmann(Organum),Japanese noise-musicians Koji Tano/MSBR and Kiyoshi Mizutani,Italian investigator G.Toniutti,polish performance-artist Arthur Tyber;Eric Lanzilotta tells about mysterious german project Cranioclast and others.As always magnifigue sound reviews’ palette ,exciting reading astonishing list of names,abounding in unexpected surprises,luxurious texture and absorbing monumentality of ideas and projects.

Igor Vaganov

*Special thanks to Daniel Plunkett

Contact:ND,PO BOX 4144,Austin,TX 78765 USATel: (512)440-7609 fax: (512) 416-8007Official web site: www.nd.org