Velimir Khlebnikov: “The Radio of the Future” (written in 1921; radiophonic recreation by Miguel Molina Alarcon and Leopoldo Amigo, 2006)
From the album Baku: Symphony of Sirens (Sound Experiments in the Russian Avant Garde)
In 1921, the Russian futurist poet Velimir Khlebnikov wrote a remarkable essay entitled “The Radio of the Future,” in which he projects a vision of the new wireless medium as a synaesthetic panacea for modern man– “the spiritual sun of the country, a great wizard and sorceror” which will unite humanity by allowing for the instantaneous, universal transmission of text, sound, flavor, and scent.
Khlebnikov’s essay, which must be read to be believed, has been imaginitively realized in sound by the scholar and sound artist Miguel Molina Alarcon of the Laboratorio de Creaciones Intermedia at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia in Spain. He has used the sonic references in “The Radio of the Future” to construct a sound-collage that evokes the heady, futuristic atmosphere of Khlebnikov’s writing.
The album from which this track is taken is one of the most remarkable documents of experimental music I have yet discovered. Consisting of one disc of reconstructions and one disc of historical recordings, Baku: Symphony of Sirens offers entry into the bizarre and beautiful sound-world of the early 20th-century Russian avant-garde. I will be featuring more of it in due time.
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