My translation of The Art of Noises is now available from Black Scat Books!

Luigi Russolo’s treatise on enriching music with noises was published in Milan in 1916. It contains his 1913 Futurist manifesto on noises, as well as his accounts of building noise instruments, his riotous concerts, his notation, and analyses of the noises of nature and technology. My translation sticks closely to Russolo’s ebullient style, and adds notes and an introduction on contemporary receptions and on Russolo’s later work. All of Russolo’s scores and instruments are lost, but his ideas have inspired generations of experimental musicians.

This marks the tenth anniversary of Black Scat Books, and editor Derek Pell (aka Norman Conquest) designed a beautiful edition for the occasion. You can find it on Amazon.

For those keeping track, this is my first Italian translation since 2002, when I translated Giovanni Battista Nazari’s alchemical dream vision Three Dreams for Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks in Glasgow. My, how time flies.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)