Maurizio Bianchi Vinyl, CD & Tape 3 Items

Postfaction OF THE Plain Truth When in the cold spring of 1983, I set about decomposing these elegiac synthetic - concrete suites, my decadent vision of life was taking a brighter turn, and in fact the atmospheres that pervade the whole work, enriched by the emotional notes of a keyboard of violins, reflect my thirst for visceral eternity. The title therefore, “The Plain Truth”, follows my research directed towards the infinity of the human soul, one step away from spiritual truth, for the benefit of the loyal supporters of the plain electro-neuronal sound. (M.B., August 2021)

When I started my record label Broken Flag in 1982, one of the people I really wanted to work with was Maurizio Bianchi. His album “Symphony for a Genocide” was such a haunting, evocative record that I needed to get in contact with the man who made it. We made contact and remained regularly writing letters to each other, mine in my unintelligible scrawl, his in his red ink on photocopy paper. He was massively prolific and I soon became a distributor for his fantastic early albums like “Regel”, “Mectpyo Bacterium”, “Mörder Unter Uns/Neuro Habitat”, “Menses”, “Endometrio”, “Carcinosi”, “Das Testament” and “Armaghedon”, albums I still love to this day. He kindly contributed tracks to Broken Flag compilations as well. Releasing an album by him was always going to be high on my list of priorities and when he agreed I was overjoyed. He said he wanted a colour cover and I was running the label on a shoestring budget but I wanted him to be happy so I agreed. He sent me two polaroid photographs which we had blown up to cover size and are the pictures on the front and back cover that you see today. He wanted to release records as Maurizio Bianchi in the future rather than just as M.B and asked for the name on the cover to read “M.B. = Maurizio Bianchi”. Although the record has the catalogue number Bfv3, it was actually the second vinyl record I put out because once I heard it, I didn’t want to wait for the first Ramleh album (bfv2) to be ready. I had been slightly apprehensive about what the record would sound like because just before he sent it, he told me that he had become a Jehovah’s Witness and seemed to be going through a very happy life-changing experience. He was in a relationship with the “T.D.” of the second side track “T.D. 56”, so I thought maybe the music would be too light sounding or upbeat and when I heard it, it certainly wasn’t what I was expecting but it was stunningly beautiful but still with some of the sadder, ominous melodies I loved so much. My fears were unfounded. It was a classic. Still one of my favourites to this day. I’m very proud of it. I get a co-production and co-direction credit on the sleeve but in reality all I did was provide the money and arrange for the record to go into production. I had no influence on the music itself or the cover pictures. Maurizio has made so many records that it’s easy to get lost knowing where to start but I think this album is a good entry point and is one of his very best along with “Mörder Unter Uns”, “Regel”, “Menses” or “Symphony for a Genocide”, although you can’t go too far wrong with any of his wonderful music. As I sit here listening to it again it takes me back to 38 years ago when I first heard it and knew that I was going to be lucky enough to release a classic for the ages. Just 500 vinyl records exist from that original Broken Flag release. They are out there somewhere except for the one I have right here which will be with me until I die. It’s great that it’s coming out on vinyl again and I hope if you’re hearing it for the first time you adore it like I do. “To all the redeemed people”. (Gary Mundy, August 2021)

The brand new imprint Oblio - the latest adventure in the Die Schachtel / Blume family - delivers their debut LP, the first ever fully remastered vinyl reissue of Maurizio Bianchi's seminal 1982 album “Regel”. A startling bridge between 1950s and '60s avant-garde electronic music and the legacies of punk, originally released on Bianchi's own Mectpyo Sounds imprint under the moniker M.B., for decades it has been hotly pursued as one of the great cornerstones of early '80s Italian experimentalism and Industrial music. Fully remastered by Andrea Marutti and issued in collaboration with the artist in a very limited edition of 280 copies on black vinyl, the album is housed in a sleeve that fully replicates the original, and contains two inserts and a sticker. It is a rare chance to immerse yourself in one of the remarkable artefacts of its era and Bianchi's singular sound world.

Having begun his career as music journalist attending to the more ambitious trajectories of Kosmische, experimentalism, and early industrial music, in 1979 Maurizio Bianchi turned his focus to making music of his own, initially self-releasing four cassettes under the moniker Sacher-Pelz, before beginning to work under his own name or the abbreviation M.B. in 1980. Regarded as a foundational project in the movements of Italian industrial music and noise, as well as a crucial link between the Milan scene and similar artists working in other parts of the world - Bianchi was in regular correspondence with Merzbow, SPK, Nigel Ayers of Nocturnal Emissions and William Bennett of Whitehouse - between 1980 and 1984, when Bianchi left the music world behind, beginning a decade and a half hiatus, he was caught in one of the most prolific flurries of production to emerge from the noise / Industrial scene, releasing roughly three dozen full-lengths of dazzling dark and bristling music in the short period of time. Of these, M.B.’s 1982 album “Regel”, originally released in a tiny edition of 280 copies by Bianchi's own Mectpyo Sounds imprint, remains one of the most celebrated and sought after.

Comprising two, untitled, side-long compositions, M.B.’s “Regel” stands among the best illuminations of the tangible links between the early electronic avant-garde and certain forms of music that blossomed from the cultural revolution of punk. The first piece draws upon manipulated sound sources, threaded with synthesizer or theremin, which collectively gather an almost post-apocalyptic sensibility. Using a similar sound palette, the album's second side delves toward a more markedly tonal realm, utilising deconstructed melodic elements, striking harmonic collisions and pulses, placed within a cavernous sense of space and texture that achieves thrilling seductiveness.

Remarkably cohesive over the entirety of its length - resembling an expansive and evolving sonorous journey through the darkened depths of visionary creative mind - “Regel” is made up of two sprawling, long-form sides standing in stark contrast to M.B.'s more aggressive, industrial-oriented works. Instead, what unfolds is a classic of austere musical hypnotism, helping add to the spiritual nature of the album as it ebbs and flows, culminating as an unprecedented form of meditation music, pitch perfect for the moment it emerged.

An unquestionable high-water mark in early '80s Italian experimentalism, as well as within the broader movements of Industrial music and noise, Maurizio Bianchi's seminal LP “Regel” remains as fresh, engrossing, and exciting as the day it first appeared in 1982. Issued by Oblio in full collaboration with the artist in a very limited edition of 280 fully remastered copies on black vinyl, housed in a sleeve that fully replicates the original and contains a sticker and two inserts, don’t miss your chance to grab a copy of a truly singular and towering piece of work.

Special vinyl-edition of the legendary cassette, privately produced and released by Maurizio Bianchi in November 1980.

The undisputed father of nuclearsurgic sound-degeneration and apocalyptic avantgarde produced one of his most radical and uncompromising works entitled Computers S.P.A., consisting of dense electronic segments, furious pulsations and harsh waveforms, formed by the Korg MS 20-synthesizer plus machinistic recordings from tape. Maurizio Bianchi describes his early works as Technoise Sound coming from; strictly personal feeling, frustration and contradiction.

Computers S.P.A. is ; completely idiosyncratic piece of music, conceived with dramatic insistence, emotion; irrationality, hysterical scission, schizophrenic energy and madness. The two improvisations inspired by computerized music can be defined as Final Industrial Music (term used by M.B.), the last sensation before the end.

After the "concretistic" beginnings and the synthesis between integral concretism and artificial synthetism, in the autumn After the "concretistic" beginnings and the synthesis between integral concretism and artificial synthetism, in the autumn of 1980 I arrived at the synthetic court of the purest and most uncompromising electronics and thus the "Computers S. P. A." project was born, consisting of two improvisations on the Korg MS synthesizer-20, free of ancestral prejudice and freely inspired by computerized music that in the second half of the 70s was gaining ground in the academic schools of experimentation. After more than 40 years, these "technical rehearsals" could seem a playful and carefree exercise, while inste@d they cover a dramatic denunciation of the sounds generated without the basic help of emotion and spontaneity, essential elements of the most genuine and constructive avantgarde music. (M.B., September 2022)

Special mention about collage art design method in collaboration with Maurizio Bianchi, Siegmar Fricke and myself. A combination with traditional tecnique of collage, 'xeroxed copy' scan and digital treatment in 'Off-set' quality print. Taken original ideas from early 80's 'mailing trade' music on cassette format.