Editions Mego

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Editions Mego
Editions-Mego-logo-0x94.png
Founded1994 as Mego
Founder Peter Rehberg aka Pita
Ramon Bauer
Andreas Pieper
Peter Meininger
Genre Electronic, glitch, noise, post-industrial
Country of origin Austria
Location Vienna
Official website https://mego.at/

Editions Mego is an experimental electronic music independent record label founded in 1994 as Mego in Vienna, Austria. The label was renamed in 2006 as a new company, set up both to keep the Mego albums in print and to issue new albums, [1] and was run by Peter Rehberg a.k.a. Pita. The label has released over 400 records in 30 years of activity. [2]

Contents

Musical style

The Mego label (and its second iteration, Editions Mego) has stood out for its unpredictability, as it has not been tied to any particular musical style. It has released music by artists as diverse as Fennesz, Russell Haswell, Oneohtrix Point Never, Bill Orcutt, and the band Emeralds, [3] [4] in styles ranging "from electroacoustic music to metal, synthwave, drone, and ambient". [5]

Among the albums that had a strong impact and launched the careers of musicians, journalist Tristan Bath mentions Endless Summer by Fennesz, Returnal by Oneohtrix Point Never, and Ecstatic Computation by Caterina Barbieri.

Impact and critical acclaim

Mego's efforts were awarded a distinction at the Ars Electronica 1999. In the jury's statement, Jim O'Rourke lauded the label's work as defining "a brand new punk computer music". [6]

History

Performance by Mego artists (including Peter Rehberg) in 1997. Pita Bratislava 1997-02-22 5.jpg
Performance by Mego artists (including Peter Rehberg) in 1997.

1994–2005: First phase as Mego

The Mego label was founded in 1994 by Ramon Bauer, Andreas Pieper, and Peter Meininger in Vienna. The label's name allegedly refers to the expression “My Eyes Glaze Over” coined by American futurologist and geostrategist Herman Kahn, [7] or to a “hacker expression to indicate that you've spent too much time in front of the screen”. [5] Mego's founders were joined in 1995 by Englishman Peter Rehberg. [3]

The label's logo in 2005. Mego logo.png
The label's logo in 2005.

In 2005, after 10 years and 75 releases, Mego faced financial difficulties, [7] and Bauer and Pieper decided to shut down the label. [8]

2006: Launch of Editions Mego

In 2006, Peter Rehberg founded Editions Mego to continue Mego's exploratory work and keep the Mego back catalogue available. [8]

In 2010, two releases by American artists, Does It Look Like I'm Here? by Emeralds and Returnal by Oneohtrix Point Never, marked a new direction for the "Mego" sound, less noisy and heavily influenced by analog synthesizers. [9] Both albums featured in Bleep website's top 10 albums of 2010. [10]

Among the iconic albums released during Rehberg's final years of activity at Editions Mego, journalist Philip Sherburne cites Hubris (2016) by Oren Ambarchi, Ecstatic Computation (2019) by Caterina Barbieri, and Peel (2020) by Kenyan musician KMRU. [2]

Mego releases

Selected Editions Mego releases

See also

References

  1. ↑ Mego at Resident Advisor
  2. 1 2 Sherburne, Philip (2021-07-26). "9 Records That Capture the Spirit of Editions Mego, the Experimental Label Founded by the Late Peter Rehberg". Pitchfork. Retrieved 2025-09-10.
  3. 1 2 Genzlinger, Neil (2021-08-19). "Peter Rehberg, a Force in Underground Music, Dies at 53 (Published 2021)". The New York Times . Retrieved 2025-09-10.
  4. ↑ Beaumont-Thomas, Ben (2021-07-23). "Peter Rehberg, underground musician and Editions Mego head, dies aged 53". The Guardian . ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2025-09-10.
  5. 1 2 Bouaici, Smaël (2024-06-14). "Au festival ManiFeste, un hommage à Peter Rehberg, figure de l'avant-garde électro". www.telerama.fr (in French). Retrieved 2025-09-10.
  6. ↑ "Rather than splitting the prize between the two Mego entries: Christian Fennesz's Hotel Parall.lel and Pita's Seven Tons for Free Remaster Version 1.2, the Jury [decided] that the Distinction should be awarded to the Mego label as a whole." Eshun, Kodwo (1999), Music from the Bedroom Studios - Prix Ars Electronica 99 / Jury-Statement, Ars Electronica Archive, archived from the original on February 3, 2006, retrieved 2007-12-26
  7. 1 2 "Editions Mego V". CTM Festival . Retrieved 2025-09-10.
  8. 1 2 "Editions Mego's Peter Rehberg on His Leading Experimental Electronic Label". Red Bull Music Academy Daily. Retrieved 2025-09-10.
  9. ↑ "Reminiscent of Club Music: 20 Years of Editions Mego - BR". BOILER ROOM. 2015-10-15. Retrieved 2025-09-10.
  10. ↑ Bleep. "Label Spotlight: Editions Mego". Bleep. Retrieved 2025-09-10.
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