I learnt today that long running experimental label ReR are about to unleash what will likely top the Parmegiani box set for gourmet release of the year:

Baku: Symphony of Sirens. Sound Experiments in the Soviet AvantGarde: Original Documents and Reconstructions of 72 Key Works of Music, Poetry and Agitprop from the Russian Avantgardes (1910-1942)

For whatever reason I have long being obsessed by this period of music, I think this stems from reading a lengthy biography on the Soviet state (focussing on the more liberal cultural experiments when Lenin still ruled the red roost) when i went through my teenage 'red' phase combined with a modern music special on the ABC exposing me to Mossolov's Zavod. Long have I been hunting anything from this era with varying degree of success - all of this work pales into complete oblivion compared to this line up:

Vol 1. ARSENI AVRAAMOV and OthersBAKU: SYMPHONY OF SIRENS and other critical reconstructions of key works of music, poetry and agit-prop from the Russian avant-garde (1908-1942)The legendary Baku concert reconstructed, plus other priceless sound works, including the legendary Victory over the Sun and other lost documents of Vertov, Mayakovski, El Lissitsky, The Nothingists, The Orchestra of Noises, Jandinsky, Malevich, Rozanova, Prokofiev, Larionov, the Psycho Futurist Group, Kamensky, Jakobson, and others.. With extensive documentation.

Vol 2. DZIGA VERTOV and Others
Enthusiasm: The Dombass Symphony, and other ORIGINAL recordings of key works of and agit-prop from the Russian avant-garde (1908-1942) ReR VERTOV

The prescient 1930 environmental sound composition recorded with a specially designed mobile system using optical film soundtrack - as well as 21 other original recorded sound documents of Mayakovsky, Jakobson, Khlebnikov, Lenin, Lunacharsky, Kollontay, Trotsky, Mossolov, Pasternak, Meytuss, Akhmatova, Mandelstahm, Naum Gabo, Shostakovich and others. With extensive documentation.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The centerpiece of this release is the absurdly grandiose "Symphony of the Factory Sirens" by Arsenij Avraamov, a piece which makes the various over-the-top experiments of the aforementioned Mossolov, Alvin Curran, Stockhausen, etc seem frail in comparison.

You gotta love excess!


Arsenij Avraamov conducting with two flaming torches, 1922

"Arsenij Avraamov's best-known creation appeared involved the Caspian port of Baku [Bakı, capital of Azerbaijan], for the Fifth Anniversary of the Soviet Republic on 7 November 1922. A spectacular, called the Symphony of the Factory Sirens, used the services of a huge cast of choirs (joined by spectators), the foghorns of the entire Soviet Caspian flotilla, two batteries of artillery guns, a number of full infantry regiments (including a machine-gun division) hydroplanes, and all the factory sirens of Baku. Conductors posted on specially built towers signaled various sound units with colored flags and pistol shots. A central "steam-whistle machine" pounded out "The Internationale" and "La Marseillaise" as noisy "autotransports" (half-tracks) raced across Baku for a gigantic sound finale in the festival square".