Mego (label)

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Mego
Mego logo.png
Founded1994
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/

Mego was an experimental electronic music independent record label founded in 1994 in Vienna, Austria. The label has been superseded in 2006 by a new company, Editions Mego, which was set up both to keep Mego albums in print and to issue new albums, [1] run by Peter Rehberg a.k.a. Pita.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 stands out for its unpredictability, as it is not tied to any particular musical style. It releases 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

The label'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 of 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 a “hacker expression to indicate that you've spent too much time in front of the screen”. [5] They were joined in 1995 by Englishman Peter Rehberg. [3]

In 2005, after 10 years and 75 releases, Mego faced financial difficulties. [7] Ramon Bauer and Andreas Pieper decided to shut down the label. Peter Rehberg then founded Editions Mego, which continued the exploratory work and kept the Mego back catalogue available. [8]

2006: launch of Editions Mego

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

Among the iconic albums released during the final years of activity of 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

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. ↑ "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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