EDITIONS MEGO - Forced Exposure

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Editions Mego reissue the 2001 release Asuma by Finnish artist Ilpo Väisänen. Originally released on CD this is the first ever vinyl issue, remastered by Rashad Becker. 2001 is a landmark year for the artist following a wave of success from the notable outfit Väisänen formed alongside Mika Vanio, Pan Sonic (as they were now known then). Following a string of highly acclaimed and influential releases such as Vakio, Kulma, A, and Aaltopiiri, Pan Sonic had toured the globe extensively leaving a trail of blown expectations and rumors of all manner of objects in venues cracking or falling apart due to the immense sound the duo concocted with their unique instruments. Taking a break from the ecstatic cacophony of Pan Sonic, Väisänen retreated to work on a solo release which conjured the spirits of the former outfit whilst simultaneously carving out a more personal take on these new electronic forms. Asuma is a precise study of drones, rhythms, clicks, ambience and gentle confusion. Whilst inhabiting a zone of abstraction the results also move in a natural field as Väisänen's native Finland permeates these recordings as much as the idea of experimentation itself. "Autioitu 1" opens the album as delicate pinball rhythms bounce across the spectrum as a hairy drone hovers underneath. The mood is both intriguing and unsettling. "Tukahduttaja" is a delightfully disorientating sound sculpture that is hard to pinpoint what it actually is. "Klikki" is comparable to a microscopic version of Pink Floyd's "Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict." "Asumaton" is a foreboding miniature acting like a segway to "Vallitseva" which embraces the icy clicks that punctuates much of the Pan Sonic output. "Arvioimaton Ongelma" is an audio riddle whilst "Jaettu" jitters around a dancefloor crawl. "Autioitu" closes proceedings as a gentle ambient thumper. Asuma is awash with contradiction and mystery. This is time wrapped in twisted turns and rewards a neat payoff for those interested in the absolute fringes of electronic 'dance' music.

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Rivet's new album for Editions Mego is an uplifting and joyous affair coming in the wake of tragedy and disenchantment. It is yet another rebirth from an artist willing to take a step back and reprise the current situation he is in. Mika Hallbäck has a long credible history in the Swedish underground. First recognized for his industrial techno works under the Grovskopa moniker he worked privately on more experimental works that eventually came out as On Feather and Wire, an album released on Editions Mego in 2020. After much acclaim for this bold new direction that blended electronic abstraction, pop and industrial forms into a heavy synthetic trip two tragedies struck. One was the passing of label boss Peter Rehberg and then the passing of his dog Lilo, who was as close as a companion one could have. Peck Glamour sees Rivet return to the reawakened Editions Mego with an album of optimism inspired by reconciliation with loss and further explorations of new mental/sonic realms. Hallbäck defines his approach as not being married to any particular machine, instrument, process or genre. However, he holds a particular affinity to sampling, of which, he says, provides the dirt and grit amongst what would otherwise be pristine, generic machine music. Peck Glamour is an album full of tracks brimming with the excitement of exploration. It's the results of a mind informed by punk, industrial, techno, dancefloor, disappointment, trauma and rebirth. Here the synthetic and authentic is viewed simply as the same means of human rationale and expression. The entire trip of Peck Glamour is sewn up with "We left before we came" whereby extraneous recordings of double bass player Gregory Vartian-Foss (tuning/strumming/moving the bass) are superimposed with local field recordings to create a gorgeous bed of sounds acting as an exciting exit music to this sharp collection of cinematic ear excursions.

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Hüma Utku returns to Editions Mego with her new album. The title Dracones makes reference to the mediaeval Latin term "Hic sunt dracones" (Here be dragons), marking the unexplored, dangerous places on world maps, expressing the fear of chaos, the unexpected and the unknown. This new work by the Istanbul sound artist is a sonic journal of an expedition into uncharted territory, one which occupies self and domesticity. Inspired by Utku's experience of matrescence, Dracones explores the themes of familial demonology, metamorphosis and homecoming as well as human relationship to the experience of love woven layers of euphoria, alienation and consumption. Musically, Dracones traverses a wide array of sonic tools whereby industrial sounds are imbedded with certain psychological angles; this is an album where, all matter meshes into a sly snapshot of the human experience with a tension and release exposure occurring frequently with dark corners opening up to bright layers of electronic experimentation. The haunting opening track "A World Between Worlds" tackles pregnancy, of which Utku was experiencing when making this record. This track features the "Lyraei," an electromagnetic string instrument and modern interpretation of the ancient lyre, that was built and played by Mihalis Shammas. Dracones is a deeply visual journey through inner and outer worlds, a space where symbolic evocation is supreme and passive listening is not an option. All tracks composed, performed and recorded by Hüma Utku. Mixed by Enyang Urbiks. Mastered by Heba Kadry. Cover artwork by Marco Ciceri. Design by Tina Frank.

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The initial return of the playful and mystical Austrian outfit General Magic came with the 20th year anniversary vinyl reissue of their classic debut Frantz (EMEGO 010LP). A record so audacious and playful it still baffles as much as it entertains. At some point whilst working on this reissue GM's Ramon Bauer and Andi Pieper were spurred on to rummage around with ideas and tools once more and after more than two decades of inactivity sonic sorcery was conjured once again. Live shows in honor of Peter Rehberg were performed in Vienna and London. Softbop, a limited risograph collaboration with Tina Frank came with the first new recordings as a digital download came out discreetly online. The first full length album following Rechenkönig in 2000 Nein Aber Ja released in 2023 on Finlay Shakespeare's GOTO Records on CD and cassette. An ongoing series of mix tapes online further highlights their interests encapsulating a new found angle on electronic mayhem. Now comes General Magic's second official full length comeback recording, Bosko, landing exactly 30 years after the initial General Magic flights into the fantastic. The new album is initially notable prior to the needle hitting the wax or the cursor identifying a track due to the artwork. Made by long term collaborator Tina Frank, this is Frank's first analogue artwork, with a painting of a happy/nervous machine thing hovering in a landscape of no discernible identity. It's quasi science fiction hovering amongst the potential for fun. Bosko sees Bauer and Pieper update and reframe their original investigations with a fresh supply of head scratching, heart racing tunes that hit the inexplicable with a wild mesh of drums, pianos, synthetic voices and all manner of immaterial sonic play. Absolutely nothing within Bosko is predictable. The amount of change in the miasma of existence and the things we touch in order to make things has shifted so exponentially we are at the point where minds are starting to glaze over. All of this makes the return of the always original, always surprising, always fresh and exciting General Magic totally in tune with the artificial intelligent apocalyptic age. The tools may have changed but the wonderfully warped gaze of Bosko offers a fresh new vision of perplexing funk and robotic punk.

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Peter Rehberg is known for his pioneering electronic work with computer software which over time evolved into a modular set up alongside running MEGO and then Editions Mego labels. Rehberg was a prolific collaborator, with other musicians and with contemporary dance and theatre productions, most notably with French artist and choreographer Gisèle Vienne, with whom he created a series of soundtracks from Showroomdummies, released under the name DACM in 2002, to Crowd in 2017. Editions Mego now presents a previously unreleased theatre soundtrack made for Icelandic choreographer Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir, whom Rehberg had a decade long collaboration with until his untimely passing in 2021. The original composition for Liminal States was created by Rehberg for the performance Pervasive Magnetic Stimuli in 2018 and then revisited as a catalyst for the concepts behind Liminal States. This work is based on an ongoing artistic research conducted by the choreographer into altered states of perception through phenomenological embodiment. It is the last in a trilogy dealing with the notion of larger forces that act on listeners beyond their conscious mind. The trilogy consists of Pervasive Magnetic Stimuli (2018), Boundless Ominous Fields (2024), and now Liminal States (2024). Rehberg's score for Liminal States is a vast canvas of spectral ambience at once tangible and unfathomable in its constantly shapeshifting lysergic dread. The results are a psychological journey through the mental effects of sound on space and subsequently the mind. The first part presents cascading waves of shimmering electronics laying the groundwork for the second part where the psychological illusion splinters into all manner of sonic effects taking the listener on a deep mental voyage. Unlike any other release in Rehberg's output Liminal States is a single long form work which, despite the form, retains Rehberg's idiosyncratic sound vision. Guðjónsdóttir and Rehberg's collaboration blurs that relationship into a greater force which truly enables the theme of liminal states to unfold in a brave new fashion. Rich in timbre and sonic invention this is powerful work easily holding its own outside of the intended performance whilst still complimenting the mission statement entirely. This profound collaboration has the cumulative effect where the concept and soundtrack are one and may be one of the strongest works in the entire Rehberg canon.

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Russell Haswell and Florian Hecker have both a long history with Mego/Editions Mego. The individual exploration of sonic phenomena by these two practitioners has resulted in both being highly regarded for their uncompromising approach to sound as matter. Russell Haswell and Florian Hecker came together as a collaborative duo with the now-legendary record Blackest Ever Black, somewhat inexplicably, on the classical imprint of Warner Brothers. In 2025, Hecker and Haswell return with a new album featuring the two-channel edit produced initially for their UPIC Diffusion Session #23, performed as a live diffusion across eight-channels at the X100 Festival, Berlin, 2023, celebrating the 100th anniversary of Xenakis' birth. This record furthers the duo's exploration of Xenakis's UPIC system as the sole instrument. The UPIC is a computer music system that generates sound from visual input. The original intention of the system developed by Xenakis was to make a utopian tool for producing new sounds accessible to all, independent of formal training. One can locate footage of Xenakis and a group of children making drawings for the system in the '70s. The duo set off experimenting with a diverse array of hand-drawn images to feed the UPIC system including news photographs of disasters and atrocities, "food porn" through to depictions of the natural world and microscopic images of molecular structures (including "the blackest ever black"). The resulting eccentric audio from these images is claimed by the artists to heighten synesthesia and is as mysterious as it is baffling. Throughout UPIC Diffusion Session #23 frequency clusters move and morph in the most unusual manner, shifting and stretching into shapes that hint at some kind of magical process. What starts out deceptively simple soon unravels into a large array of sonic mayhem. Symbolic jet planes are shredded by a swarm of insects, a metal bowl howls into the void, a tiny tin toy crawls into a thicket with the resolute aura of a black hole. A burning geyser of laser forms liquid shrapnel. This is sound as an alchemical process, a constant chimerical flow into the netherworld and is the net result of the decades long radical investigations by the two artists involved. UPIC Diffusion Session #23 is a direct, rich and rewarding listen for those willing to invest time into the outer limits.

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Klara Lewis' latest offering is undoubtedly a heartfelt tribute to her friend, mentor and former label boss, Peter Rehberg. The opening track "Thankful" resides as a direct tribute to the track recorded under his PITA moniker, the timeless "Track 3." Countless new youth carve and project wildly distorted melodic digital matter which all falls back with a knowing or unknowing wink to this original ground zero monster. Klara's take on this is one that resides as a tribute to Rehberg with a cascading emotional melody gradually succumbing to a euphoric digital abyss. Thankful also comes across as a farewell gesture to her deceased friend with its beautiful, almost funeral tone. The abrupt ending is not only a method Rehberg would have relished but also a signifier of a life suddenly cut short. The track "Ukulele 1" is another tender tribute within an album made by a human, utilizing contemporary technology with absolute sincerity, surprise twists and sublime emotion. The sound of the instrument in the title gently loops and deconstructs in a recording replete with the sound of the room it is recorded in. A human element appears at exactly the point an increasingly inhuman approach is becoming the forced raison d'etre today. One of Peter's many repeated phrases was the word "top." One he used at any occasion to agree with a vast array of subjects. With this musical tribute to Rehberg's favorite phrase, Lewis conjures a short blast of mutant acid techno which shrivels and thrives as much as it lives and dies. Following "Top" is the reflective and deeply moving "4U." No words. Just sounds. As it was. And lives on. "Ukulele 2" sits at the end, as an epilogue of sorts, fashioning itself as an ouroboros with the return of the initial methodology of the previous track "Thankful." This time around the sublime melody of the previous "Ukulele 1" plays out in returnal as it is gently swarmed by all manner of digital play. Thankful is an emotionally considered and precise homage to the methodology and spirit of Peter Rehberg. A new work which inhabits the spirit for what this was written for and the general guise devised with the launch of the original MEGO label many moons ago.

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Directions Out Of Town is the latest and teased as (possibly) the last LP by DIY electronic abstract pop wizard Finlay Shakespeare. Directions Out Of Town is a fierce mix of headstrong pop bangers. There is simply no one else traversing the field that Shakespeare is exploring. It can be lonely in the desert. Lyrically, Directions Out Of Town is dealing with loss; personally, geographically, politically, culturally -- a general decay of everything. This new record is heavily inspired by structural film where the results unravel a method where metaphor is removed from the act of sound synthesis, production and mix of the tracks. Fiercely independent and brimming with integrity this is a deeply effective journey through machines of the human experience. The track titles are telling: "Away," "Get," "Direction," "I go for a walk," etc. This is sentiment via complex synthesis wrung through patterns of pop. One also finds ways out that only turn out to be false/untrue. What is ostensibly an electro pop record reveals a multitude of layers and depth as one man and his machines wrestle with the reality of this tangled matrix. If the charts had brains this would be album of the year. Finlay Shakespeare is an electronic musician working in the UK. His fascination for synthesized sound was born out of his parents' record collection, leading him to explore the electronic music of decades past throughout his teenage years. While starting to write and record his own tracks, he also began learning analogue electronics, which led him to design and build his own equipment. To date, he has released work on Editions Mego, Superpang, and his own GOTO Records.

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2024 repress. With the demise of Wire in 1980, founding members Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis joined forces to create Dome. With the assistance of engineer Eric Radcliffe and his Blackwing Studio, Dome took the ethic of "using the studio as a compositional tool" and recorded and released three albums on their own label in the space of 12 months: Dome (DOME 001LP, 2019), Dome 2 (1980), and Dome 3 (1981). A final fourth album, Will You Speak This Word: Dome IV was released on the Norwegian Uniton label in 1982. These albums represent some of the most beautifully stark and above all, timeless exercises in studio experimentation from early the 1980s alternative music scene. Previously issued in the out of print DOME 1-4+5 box set in 2011, Dome 2 is now available as standalone LP, with new artwork by Dave Coppenhall. Floating-point re-master by Russell Haswell, August 2011. Cut at Dubplates & Mastering by Rashad Becker. Includes download.

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2024 repress. With the demise of the group Wire in 1980, founder members Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis joined forces to create Dome. With the assistance of engineer Eric Radcliffe and his Blackwing Studio Dome took the ethic of "using the studio as a compositional tool" and recorded and released three Dome albums on their own label in the space of 12 months: Dome (July 1980), Dome 2 (October 1980), and Dome 3 (October 1981). A final fourth album, Will You Speak This Word: Dome IV was released on the Norwegian Uniton label in May 1983. These albums represent some of the most beautifully stark and above all timeless exercises in studio experimentation from early 1980s alternative music scene. Previously issued in the out-of-print Dome 1-4+5 box set in 2011. Now available as standalone LP; Includes download card. New artwork by Dave Coppenhall. B.C. Gilbert: voices, guitars, bass, percussion, tapes, drums; G. Lewis: voices, guitars, bass, percussion, tapes, synthesizer; A.M.C. - voice on "Cruel When Complete". Recorded on March 10th & 16th, 1980 and April 1st, 1980; Produced by B.C. Gilbert and G. Lewis; Engineer - Eric Radcliffe; Asst. engineer - John Fryer; Floating-point re-master by Russell Haswell, August 2011; Cut at Dubplates & Mastering by Rashad Becker, August 2011.

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2024 repress. With the demise of the group Wire in 1980, founder members Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis joined forces to create Dome. With the assistance of engineer Eric Radcliffe and his Blackwing Studio Dome took the ethic of "using the studio as a compositional tool" and recorded and released three Dome albums on their own label in the space of 12 months: Dome (July, 1980), Dome 2 (October, 1980), and Dome 3 (October 1981). A final fourth album, Will You Speak This Word: Dome IV was released on the Norwegian Uniton label in May 1983. These albums represent some of the most beautifully stark and above all timeless exercises in studio experimentation from early 1980s alternative music scene. Previously issued in the out-of-print Dome 1-4+5 box set in 2011. Floating-point re-master by Russell Haswell, August 2011. Cut at Dubplates & Mastering by Rashad Becker, August 2011. New artwork by Dave Coppenhall. Includes download card.

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Grain is the third Innode release following on from Gridshifter (EMEGO 168LP) in 2013 and syn (EMEGO 294LP) in 2021. A new methodology to make the album is applied yet again from the trio of Bernhard Breuer, Steven Hess, and Stefan Németh. The approach is more an anti-approach where the trio let the process of creation itself steer the development of the recording, without any prior conceptual agenda. Irregular rhythmic patterns often served as the initial springboard for each piece with Breuer creating a loop either by playing drums or with the aid of a modelling percussion synthesizer. The results often bypass existing formulaic grids. The outfit embraced these anti-precision steps building shapes around the tarnished templates. The process of building upon the core structures laid forth alters throughout. In the case of "Splitter" you can hear an example of Bernhard's core loops dominating a skeletal audio sphere. The title of the track "Impactopium" reflects the process of its construction being a conglomeration of individual titles meshed into a whole. The audio is a non-linear compendium of several fragments of individual elements. A conscious method of exploring a more decentralized architecture saw three disparate elements layered randomly on top of each other with some synths added as a sonic seasoning at the later stages. Elsewhere sonic elements are restructured in unusual ways. One member's contribution is completely stripped away, quiet sounds captured with contact mics are highly amplified, the last track introduces twisted themes of the first track. The title Grain refers to the roughness resulting from these explorations. It also takes note of the term grain as used in analogue photography or in the case of audio as a distorted signal, or "noise. All of these elements, normally eschewed, are here embraced as a thematic thread to instigate the exploratory proceedings. This is a playbox of inventiveness, a hall of mirrors and an endless search for unusual tactics and fresh results. Tackling the initial loop tracks from a wide variety of strategic approaches Innode has concocted a strangely cohesive work. From sparse source material to heavy overdubs of overdubs grain is an uplifting collection of works from this relentlessly curious and exploratory Austrian outfit. Humans make the work but the random embracing of unexpected processes means the gentleman of the outfit is not fully ruling what becomes of these works.

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NPVR is the avant garde duo made up of the late Peter Rehberg and Nik Void. Editions Mego presents their second and final release. No, this is not some kind of Beatles synthetic AI that raises the dead reconstructed recordings but rather a new album made by the humans and their machines. The initial meeting of Rehberg and Void was in London in 2016 and despite or due to their mutual awkwardness found solace and compatibility in the fact that they both had a similar electronic modular set up, along with matching cases to transport all. The idea to collaborate was an obvious and organic process as a means to connect their individual gear together and observe the outcome. The fruits of these initial experiments, recorded in London, resulted in the playful experimentation of their acclaimed 2017 release 33 33 (EMEGO 251LP). Now, Editions Mego presents the logically titled follow up, 33 34. These sessions were recorded six months after the initial recordings at Peter's home in Vienna. This was planned out as a mirror city release to the original London recordings. The initial session of these recordings was edited by Rehberg and sent to Void to further develop. Over time the final versions were agreed on and then shelved as other outside projects took over. Following Rehberg's untimely passing, Void had difficulty listening back to the sessions but eventually thought it fit to complete and release this album, of which even the artwork (like 33 33, an image from Zurich photographer, Georg Gatsas) had been decided upon prior to Rehberg parting ways. There is an unmistakable joy to these recordings. One encounters an enthralling exploration of their chosen machines which conveys the excitement of what can be randomly conjured when people speak through such devices. There is no grand statement or argument here, just the sheer thrill of creation and the recorded results of random encounters.

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In the early days of MEGO prior to its transformation into Editions MEGO, a most unexpected release appeared amongst the radical roster. Out of all the twisted hard drive activity from PITA, General Magic, Farmers Manual, etc. appeared a very different kind of release. One made from a computer, but one with a softer atmosphere, cloud-like in sonic shape and even containing discernible melodies. This was the debut release from Japanese artist Tujiko Noriko which not only launched her career to a larger audience but opened the doors of Editions Mego to a broader range of experimental musical forms. Noriko's particular synthesis of electronic abstraction, melody, voice, and atmosphere has few peers as sound gently circles her mystical words morphing into a succession of emotive aural experiments framed as songs. Noriko's evolution since her debut Mego release has seen further solo works alongside collaborations as well as a shift into cinema, both acting and as director. On Crépuscule, one can hear the influence the film medium has had on her music as visual insignia are invoked in the evocative audio at hand. Instrumental interludes further conjure a film landscape alongside the titles which also reiterate the cinematic form. This is synthetic music with a deep human presence. The mind of a human captured wandering the fantastic realms of the internal sphere is exquisitely rendered through machines which usually prompt one to disfigure such humanistic tendencies. The warmth, serenity, and dream-like environment that Noriko conjures from her tools is what makes her such a unique and outstanding artist and Crépuscule is an epic testament to these powers. The title Crépuscule perfectly encapsulates the somnambulant nature of the music where the nocturnal shifts evoke a broad sense of calm. Crépuscule I features a selection of shorter "songs" whilst Crépuscule II allows more room for these songs/moods to breathe with only three songs running at broader longer duration. Crépuscule allows the listener to view the world through Noriko's eyes. With her cunning ability to humanize machines a world of calm wonder is allowed to take focus in the frame. Double-CD version comes in heavy cardboard mini-gatefold; edition of 300.

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Dismantling the acoustic to feed the electronic, Editions Mego presents Telepath, the new album by Material Object. Born out of a single improvised recording session with a lone violinist, Telepath is a startling album of future electronic music, resulting in an LP of unique and timeless tracks that reimagine a classic sound for an endless future. Boldly departing from his previous canon of largely "ambient" work, Material Object's Telepath renders itself out as something much stranger, something more spacious, more subtle and gradual. Moments of bouncing minimalism meet moirés of delayed pure tones phasing in and out of resolution, giving way to a series of strobing foreground gestures arranged and offset in disorienting landscapes which scatter themselves asymmetrically amongst crystal pools of reverb. Reveling in the creative dismemberment of the original source material, Material Object slowly and patiently induces the violin to undergo every category of torsion, pressure and rupture. Its vivid acoustic qualities pass over and across the event horizon of the digital domain. Shattering then crystalizing into points and coordinates, intersections, disjunctions, planes and reverberant figures. An uncanny geometry perceived only between the ears, at once dissolving and reconstructing itself. A hypnotic and time-dilated recapitulation of what's gone before as if looking back from beyond a mirror. When it finally resolves in the closing moments and returns you home, you realize you haven't really moved at all. Equally abstract, haunting and daring, Material Object's Telepath is a singular work that abandons all notions of genre. Erupting with a tension of opposites that unfolds as a truly unique story, told in four dimensions and draped in deafening color. Mastered by AtomTM. Cut by Andreas at Schnittstelle Berlin. Includes download code; edition of 300.

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On her third album, Berlin-based Dutch-Italian composer and sound designer Aimée Portioli, aka Grand River, asks what guiding forces might be driving, enticing, and affecting us. All Above is rooted in her deeply personal philosophy as an artist, blurring the boundaries between electronic music and acoustic music and sculpting familiar ambient forms into personal themes painted with rich emotional colors. Written painstakingly over the last two years, the album is the most ambitious and divergent set of music Portioli has assembled so far, with a wide variety of instrumentation (including voices, strings, organs, guitars, and synthesizers) focused around the piano. When the music blooms into abstraction and processed electronics, it's almost imperceptible: reverb mutates into ghostly vapor trails, and distortion forms the keys into another instrument entirely. All Above follows 2020's acclaimed Blink A Few Times To Clear Your Eyes (EMEGO 290LP) and 2018's Pineapple released on Donato Dozzy and Neel's Spazio Disponibile imprint. Portioli operates in a unique space within the electronic music scene, straddling the art world and the wider electronic music scene. In addition to providing A/V accompaniment, Marco Ciceri also maintains the visual identity of Portioli's label One Instrument, a concept imprint that asks artists to create music only using a single device. All this experience is poured into All Above, a richly visual album that's far more than just an imaginary film score. While on "Human", her piano punctuates a rhythmic synthesized bassline and smudged choirs that can't help but trace out the silver screen. The composer is keen to clarify that she doesn't think of her music (or sound in general) in visual terms. Portioli studied as a linguist and used her art to develop an emotional language that's not bound by expected cultural constraints. When she adds a different instrument or process, it's not to reference a visual cue but to mark a journey through different states of being. The tracks are like meditative poems rather than cinematic vignettes: "The World At Number XX" is seemingly centered around a chugging synthesized arpeggio, but the cosmic, Klaus Schulze-esque pads, strangled guitar and evocative organ tones hint at the open-hearted, literate psychedelia of the 1970s; "In The Present As The Future" meanwhile is breathy and windswept, juxtaposing urgent rhythmic phrases with light, flute-like gusts of harmony. Dedicated to Editions Mego founder Peter Rehberg, who died suddenly in 2021, All Above demands engagement and refuses to evaporate into the background. The album asks listeners not just to absorb the album as a whole but notice the cracks in the structure and discern the tension they cause. Edition of 500; includes download code.

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Editions Mego presents The Psychologist, the sophomore album by the Istanbul born and raised, Berlin based electronic music composer and sound artist Hüma Utku. As the title suggests, The Psychologist, is a series of sonic essays based around themes of psychological phenomena and can be read as a musical enquiry into the human condition. With Utku's background as a graduate of Psychology and her current practice as a conceptual music composer we see the two main threads in her professional career intertwine on this unique and ambitious release. Including recordings of Buchla 200 from Utku's Elektronmusikstudion residency in October 2020, The Psychologist is a genre aversive work that embodies elements of synthesizer music, electroacoustic, experimental techno, industrial, modern composition, and spoken word. Piano, string compositions, and vocals hold weight throughout a number of pieces providing a dramatic acoustic edge to the psychological explorations contained within. The foreboding mood of much of this release is the product of investigation that lends the unsettling theme of anticipatory grief to the mood of the tracks "Light of All Lights" and "Continuing Bonds". "Islands of Consciousness" refers to Jungian metaphor for consciousness whilst the unnerving Rüya twists around dream analysis in Gestalt psychology. "Fuel For The Flames" proceeds as a buzzing and swirling representation of alchemy and psychological symbolism. "Dissolution of I" is haunted by a strange sensation of dissociation whilst defense mechanisms support the sublime Sublimation. The bright shapes of "Chironian Wound" represent archetypes and analytical psychology whilst the fried soundscapes and rhythms of "Ataxia" encapture neurological states. The results unravel with both the clockwork rhythms of the human body and the unpredictable nature of the psyche, the pieces follow arrhythmic patterns in a harmonious way. It tells the raw and intimate story of the human experience with a new work whereby the predictable operates in parallel with the unexpected and like human experience itself, is dark and complex. The Psychologist follows Utku's debut on Karlrecords in 2019. Double LP; glossy print; includes download code; edition of 500.

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Melvin Gibbs is the renowned bass player and producer from Brooklyn whose vast resume includes playing with Sonny Sharrock, John Zorn, The Rollins Band, Dead Prez, Caetano Veloso, and Femi Kuti, amongst others. Behind the scenes, those who know Gibbs knew that amongst all this he was also tinkering away at another form of music, one which skirts around the border between music and sound design. The Wave is the first release that reveals this side of Gibbs's creative output to those outside his inner circle. The driving force for this output is Gibbs's multi-decade friendship with acclaimed American video artist and cinematographer, Arthur Jafa. Over the course of time Gibbs and Jafa have had many conversations about music and the connection between film and music. Jafa's desire to make film that worked the way Black (as in Black/African-American/Afro-diasporic peoples) music worked inspired Gibbs to study the filmmakers Serge Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov and incorporate their philosophies and tactics when recording his own music. The two discussed sound design which directly informed Gibbs's choice of music making tools and led to him acquiring Symbolic Systems Kyma software and hardware, incorporating this as a composition tool and sound design and component in his work. These conversations bore concrete fruit through Gibbs' work for TNEG, the film studio Jafa ran with filmmakers Malik Sayeed and Elissa Blount Moorhead. Gibbs created the soundtrack for their very first project, the short film Deshotten 1.0 (2009) as well as their Martin Luther King-inspired meditation on Black life Dreams Are Colder Than Death (2013). The bass-forward music, or "sonics" as Gibbs calls it, emerged from an alternative mode of contemplation, a mode that he sees as closer to the mindset of a rootworker, an African-American herbal doctor who cures psychic ailments using means derived from African spiritual practice. In 2020, Jafa asked Gibbs to work on the soundtrack for a work in progress called The Wave. When they got together to work on the soundtrack, Jafa played Gibbs a selection of sounds that included random moments of (probably unwanted) feedback on '70s Miles Davis records, Pop Smoke's Brooklyn drill, the music of Bernard Gunter and Darmstadt-style compositions made with test equipment. Those sounds, filtered through years of conversation with Jafa about Black creativity and the possible evolution of Black music, formed the sonic vocabulary of The Wave. Over time the sonics evolved and The Wave became the piece Jafa calls "AGHDRA". Gibbs mentions although the work with Jafa has always skirted these lines of evolution, this side of his vocabulary has been generally neglected, until now, due to his current jazz musician/jazz festival-centric focus and radar. The result of this parallel exploration is a deep excursion into a nuanced sound world. Includes printed inner sleeve and download code; edition of 500.

$33.00$28.05 IN STOCK

Hotel Paral.lel, originally released by MEGO in 1997, marks the full-length debut release from Austrian Christian Fennesz. The album followed the twitching drone as found on the 1995 EP Instrument, also included in this deluxe double-LP reissue. Once launched, Hotel Paral.lel was to instigate a sublime exploration of a wide variety of forms, from formal abstraction to shimmering drone around to ground zero glitch pop. Recorded just before mobile computing devices became omnipresent it was an investigation into the sonic possibilities residing in guitar based digital music. "Sz" launches the career with a constantly buzzing sound that resembles a fax machine encountering a G3 laptop for the first time, realizing the game is up. "Nebenraum" is the first foray into the style for which one would attribute to Fennesz. A glacial drone unexpectedly morphs into a gorgeous melody and microscopic groove. Adding pulse and melody was hearsay in the radical end of experimental music up until this point and with this single gesture, everything changed, for everyone. "Blok M" nails this trajectory home with a straight up 4/4 beat. Such rhythm also features on "Fa" with a euphoric mix of a thudding beat, sharp splinters of noise and a devastating exploding melody. Repetition plays heavily through this album as the hyper metronomic beat on traxdata lays a bed for all manner of buzzing electronics. On the closing "Aus" we see a glimpse of what was to come in the future works of Fennesz, an experiment in popping, bubbling pulse pop. A far more darker and experimental work than Fennesz's subsequent work. This is an exquisite radical field of freeform noise, sliced techno beats and subtle ambient texture all coming together to create a timeless work. There's little out there in the world of music, still to this day, that sounds remotely like Hotel Paral.lel. With a radical reinvention of music Hotel Paral.lel is an essential addition to collectors of pioneering music in the late 20th century and sounds as enthralling today as it did to the shocked ears occupying 1997. Remastered by Stephan Mathieu. Vinyl cut by Andreas Kauffelt at Schnittstelle. Artwork by Tina Frank. First time on vinyl. Gatefold sleeve; includes download code.

$17.50$14.88 IN STOCK

Editions Mego presents The Psychologist, the sophomore album by the Istanbul born and raised, Berlin based electronic music composer and sound artist Hüma Utku. As the title suggests, The Psychologist, is a series of sonic essays based around themes of psychological phenomena and can be read as a musical enquiry into the human condition. With Utku's background as a graduate of Psychology and her current practice as a conceptual music composer we see the two main threads in her professional career intertwine on this unique and ambitious release. Including recordings of Buchla 200 from Utku's Elektronmusikstudion residency in October 2020, The Psychologist is a genre aversive work that embodies elements of synthesizer music, electroacoustic, experimental techno, industrial, modern composition, and spoken word. Piano, string compositions, and vocals hold weight throughout a number of pieces providing a dramatic acoustic edge to the psychological explorations contained within. The foreboding mood of much of this release is the product of investigation that lends the unsettling theme of anticipatory grief to the mood of the tracks "Light of All Lights" and "Continuing Bonds". "Islands of Consciousness" refers to Jungian metaphor for consciousness whilst the unnerving Rüya twists around dream analysis in Gestalt psychology. "Fuel For The Flames" proceeds as a buzzing and swirling representation of alchemy and psychological symbolism. "Dissolution of I" is haunted by a strange sensation of dissociation whilst defense mechanisms support the sublime Sublimation. The bright shapes of "Chironian Wound" represent archetypes and analytical psychology whilst the fried soundscapes and rhythms of "Ataxia" encapture neurological states. The results unravel with both the clockwork rhythms of the human body and the unpredictable nature of the psyche, the pieces follow arrhythmic patterns in a harmonious way. It tells the raw and intimate story of the human experience with a new work whereby the predictable operates in parallel with the unexpected and like human experience itself, is dark and complex. The Psychologist follows Utku's debut on Karlrecords in 2019.

$24.00$20.40 IN STOCK

LP version. Editions Mego welcomes Powell to its roster with a bizarre and strangely emotive new album of synthetic computer works entitled Piano Music 1-7. Via his own Diagonal Records imprint, his work on XL Recordings and, most recently, the opening of audio/film platform A Folder [afolder.studio], Powell has firm footing in the contemporary electronic landscape. During a wry and obstinate musical life he has twisted myriad synthetic forms into shapes that explore and expand upon the districts of post-punk, techno, noise + computer music, and in the last year alone he has released four albums of hi-def abstractions, each inspired by a formalization of music proposed by Iannis Xenakis. As an extension of this intense period of work/research/play with stochastic functions [using probabilities to compose music], various processes emerged that Powell then began to apply to more traditional musical events. Where ordinarily in his work the probabilities and relationships are used to define parameters such as wave-shape, folding, FM, filter modes etc., he now began to use them to create musical formations and visual scores that could be played back using any software/MIDI instrument. While mapping out this cartography of relations, he used a basic Grand Steinway sampler as a placeholder instrument; the longer the process went on, though, the more he began to embrace the acoustic properties of the synthetic piano and make it the bedrock for this new constellation of work. Piano Music 1-7, subtitled Music for Synthetic Piano and Assorted Electronics, consists of seven different synthetic islands strung together into a single composition. All were composed using the aforementioned processes that allowed Powell to play a piano, even if he never learned to do so with his hands. At times the piano skips gleefully over shadowing synthesis, whilst at others the synthetic sheets swarm and envelope the keys. The interplay between the two create a fantastical alternate reality, a cosmic machine in which time is eroded, shrunk and expanded, like a wax upon which operations and relations are inscribed or engraved. This interplay of the [artifical] acoustic and the electronic builds on the pioneering processes developed by David Behrman in works such as Leapday Night, and Piano Music 1-7 could also be posited as a modern take on Conlon Nancarrow's investigations for player piano. Similarly, the razor-sharp sonic properties and unfolding of non-human events recall the computer works of Xenakis and the surgical precision of Mego mainstay Florian Hecker. Recorded in late 2020.

$29.50 NOT IN STOCK

Special mirrored silver foil gatefold cover with banderole. Pressed on crystal clear vinyl; one time pressing. Returnal is the fourth album from Daniel Lopatin's Oneohtrix Point Never project, after Betrayed In The Octagon (Deception Island, 2007), Zones Without People (Arbor, 2009) and Russian Mind (No Fun, 2009). All three albums being superbly compiled on the Rifts double CD set (No Fun, 2009). It sees Lopatin fine-tune his craft for the creation of deep atmospheres and textures even further. Starting off with the mind-blowing triptych of "Nil Admiari"/"Describing Bodies"/"Stress Waves," which fires off into a noise/rhythm excess before entering a zone of relative calm, building to the melancholy of the final part. This sets the tone perfectly for the album's title track, a stunning, out-of-this-world ballad featuring Lopatin's near-desperate vocal delivery, ending what could be seen as one of his most chilling and thought-provoking sides to-date. The atmosphere is slightly lifted as the darkened sun comes up over the ruins on "Pelham Island Road" and "Where Does Time Go," with the album closing with edgy broken beats and the fourth-world possible landscapes of "Preyouandi," which fades into the distance with echoes of the "Returnal" chorus closing the loop. What's burnt into memory here is Lopatin's love affair with the long, slow path back home... the cycle... the hypnotic sector... the ghost in the machine... and whether people are making dance music or hip-hop or space head-music or metal, the ouroboros is present in every sector -- as it was in Bach's study, and in the elephant songs of the Ituri forests. Instrumentation: Akai AX-60, Roland Juno-60, Roland MSQ-700, Korg Electribe ES-1, Voice. Recorded using a personal computer. Mastered by James Plotkin. Tape-op & additional engineering by Al Carlson. Design by Stephen O'Malley.

$16.50$14.03 IN STOCK

Editions Mego welcomes Powell to its roster with a bizarre and strangely emotive new album of synthetic computer works entitled Piano Music 1-7. Via his own Diagonal Records imprint, his work on XL Recordings and, most recently, the opening of audio/film platform A Folder [afolder.studio], Powell has firm footing in the contemporary electronic landscape. During a wry and obstinate musical life he has twisted myriad synthetic forms into shapes that explore and expand upon the districts of post-punk, techno, noise + computer music, and in the last year alone he has released four albums of hi-def abstractions, each inspired by a formalization of music proposed by Iannis Xenakis. As an extension of this intense period of work/research/play with stochastic functions [using probabilities to compose music], various processes emerged that Powell then began to apply to more traditional musical events. Where ordinarily in his work the probabilities and relationships are used to define parameters such as wave-shape, folding, FM, filter modes etc., he now began to use them to create musical formations and visual scores that could be played back using any software/MIDI instrument. While mapping out this cartography of relations, he used a basic Grand Steinway sampler as a placeholder instrument; the longer the process went on, though, the more he began to embrace the acoustic properties of the synthetic piano and make it the bedrock for this new constellation of work. Piano Music 1-7, subtitled Music for Synthetic Piano and Assorted Electronics, consists of seven different synthetic islands strung together into a single composition. All were composed using the aforementioned processes that allowed Powell to play a piano, even if he never learned to do so with his hands. At times the piano skips gleefully over shadowing synthesis, whilst at others the synthetic sheets swarm and envelope the keys. The interplay between the two create a fantastical alternate reality, a cosmic machine in which time is eroded, shrunk and expanded, like a wax upon which operations and relations are inscribed or engraved. This interplay of the [artifical] acoustic and the electronic builds on the pioneering processes developed by David Behrman in works such as Leapday Night, and Piano Music 1-7 could also be posited as a modern take on Conlon Nancarrow's investigations for player piano. Similarly, the razor-sharp sonic properties and unfolding of non-human events recall the computer works of Xenakis and the surgical precision of Mego mainstay Florian Hecker. Recorded in late 2020.

$16.50$14.03 IN STOCK

Irreal definition is -- not real. "In order to imagine, a consciousness must be able to posit an object as irreal' -- nonexistent, absent -- Jean Paul Sartre Irreal is a selection of recordings from different situations encountered in Austria, Russia, South Korea and The Benelux. The range of sound is as wide as is the emotional impact which slides from the unnerving to the shimmering and gorgeous. Doors, bells, birds, wet snow falling from a tree, hacking of wood, water dripping in a cave are all exquisitely captured and molded into vast landscapes of sound. Human voices, string instruments, descending trains, oceans, winds, grass, trees. These diverse sonic elements are grafted around and upon each other to create a rich tapestry of sound. Electronic embellishments harness the whole to create a singular expressive canvas. The three-part suite concludes with the "Beyond pebbles, rubble and dust", a grand glacial work which serves as a masterclass in extraordinary transcendental drone. The sound of nature, the nature of sound and the effects these have on humans has been a primary focus of BJ Nilsen's investigation over the years. Irreal resounds with a level of sophisticated enquiry one would expect from one of the contemporary masters of the form. Includes 16-page booklet. All material by BJ Nilsen. Recorded and Mixed at Odd Phasing and Echoes, Amsterdam NL 2021. Source material from Austria, Russia, South Korea and The Benelux. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu. Photography Karl Lemieux. Design by Stephen O'Malley.

$34.00$28.90 IN STOCK

Double LP version. "Gonzen, uminari or retumbos. Perhaps you've heard these sounds? They're known to occur all over the world and, as one might expect, humans have strained to offer various explanations for these unsettling emissions that materialize unbidden from the sky. We like to say that we've understood what's happening so that we can move on. Tidy up the loose ends and don't scare the horses. Nothing wrong with that in good measure, but there's something to be said for the Haudenosaunee peoples' explanation. They pointed out that the Great Spirit hasn't finished their work of shaping the earth and is making a fair bit of noise while they're at it. If you accept that many questions never truly get answered, in fact can or should never truly be answered, you may be able to tune your mind to this collection of lingering sonic detonations. If you accept that the work is ongoing, our labors seldom done, that there's not much point talking about the end of anything, you may be ready to join us. It's not our task to finish it, nor are we free to desist." Written and produced by Anthony Child and Daniel Bean. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu at Schwebung Mastering, February 2021. Cut by Andreas Kauffelt at Schnittstelle, Berlin, April 2021.