Ladna and Turist (WIP) in use for ULTRA-RED: A Journal of Militant Sound Inquiry Vol. 1, designed by Ott Kagovere. Publishing house Rab-Rab Press describes the project as follows:

For their thirtieth anniversary, Ultra-red, the international sound art and popular education collective is releasing the first volume of ULTRA-RED: A Journal of Militant Sound Inquiry, investigating movement-based listening practices that take the forms of militant inquiry and political education.

Ladna and Turist (WIP) in use for Biting the Hand: Traces of Resistance in the Art & Language diaspora, published by Rab-Rab Press. Graphic design and typesetting by Ott Kagovere and Mark Foss.

Edited, compiled and introduced by Paul Wood, Biting the Hand: Traces of Resistance in the Art & Language diaspora is about a dissident formation of artists active in the UK in the 1970s and 80s.

The book tells the story of artists engaging with a critique of then-contemporary modernist art education, who have embarked on a series of theoretical investigations which became increasingly politicised under the pressures of an evolving social crisis. Increased racism, unemployment and attacks on the organised working class all raised questions about how a critical art might respond.

Graphic designer Ott Kagovere used an early version of Turist for The Sugar and the Hunger by Robert Linhart, published in an edition of 800 copies by Rab-Rab Press:

The first English language translation of Robert Linhart’s The Sugar and the Hunger, originally published in 1980 is an indispensable factographic inquiry into modern hunger.

Widely acclaimed for his engaged social analyses of proletariat and peasant struggles around the world, Linhart’s inquiry into the sugar regions of North-Eastern Brazil, juxtaposes heterogeneous traits of the impoverished workers’ stories into a vivid cinematic montage.

Translated by John M Floyd and Emilio Sauri, the book includes rare photographs taken by François Manceaux in Northeastern Brazil in 1979.

Turist (WIP) is an interpretation of Venezia, released by Keystone in 1899.

The first volume in the bie bao series by Rab-Rab Press is dedicated to militant zaum investigations by Ilya Zdanevich, better known as Iliazd (1894–1975). Zdanevich was a poet, designer, typographer, theoretician, and publisher who developed a new philosophy and methodology from zaum (trans-sense) experiments.

From the publisher’s website:

The series will include eight publications, covering many layers of Zdanevich’s rich theoretical and artistic output. Each volume will consist of a bio-bibliographical introduction, a commentary, a translation with annotations, and artistic intervention.

The first volume of the bie bao series presents Zdanevich’s talk Le degré 41 sinapisé on the “pearl disease” in language, reporting on the potential of zaum to destroy not only social and national barriers, but also the ones dividing humans and animals. This first English translation of the talk from 1922 is introduced together with a short note by Marzio Marzaduri, an Italian scholar who first published the sinapisé lecture from the manuscript in its original Russian. The volume also includes an experimental essay by Elvin Brandhi, a Welsh musician who sent her text to us from Istanbul, while on a long layover on the way to Beirut on February 22nd 2022, exactly one hundred years on from the date Zdanevich initially gave the lecture.

The bie bao series is edited by Sezgin Boynik and designed by Bardhi Haliti.

Ladna in use for From Scratch – Albanian Summer Picaresque was edited by Pykë-Presje, co-published by Pykë-Presje and Rab-Rab Press, with graphic design by Ott Kagovere. From the publishers:

From Scratch is a story of Albanian Summer: An Entertainment, an LP album released by Practical Music in London in 1984. The album was composed by Dave Smith, musician and a member of The Scratch Orchestra, and performed by Janet Sherbourne and Jan Steele, improvised and classical musicians. Through interviews, archival materials, and hard-to-find essays the publication contextualizes the background of British experimental musicians’ interest in socialist Albania. It includes new interviews with Dave Smith and Jan Steele, three essays by Smith on Albanian music and culture, an essay by Gavin Bryars on Smith’s music, discussions on the influence of A.L. Lloyd and Cornelius Cardew, and the role of the Albanian Society in the UK.

The book will introduce new insight into the leftist internationalist background of British experimental music influenced by the work of Cardew.

Apart from the musical internationalism, the book also includes a section of nine abstract slogans depicting the political and artistic contradictions of socialist Albania; annotated bibliography of books published in different languages on Albania; the collection of images taken from the biweekly Zëri i Rinisë (The Voice of Youth) published in 1984 and 1985.