(Editions) Mego 1995–2020

3 February 2021 – 6 June 2021
#Chamber Music

The first exhibition presented in CHAMBER MUSIC, the feature of Museum for Preventive Imagination for listening to recorded experimental music, explores the audio universe of the production covering twentyfive years of musical research guided by Peter Rehberg aka Pita, a leading figure of the international electronic and experimental music scene.

At the helm of Editions Mego since 2006, Rehberg joined Ramon Bauer, Andreas Piper and Peter Meininger, the founders of Mego in 1995, becoming part of the history of a record label that in the mid-1990s changed the music panorama of Vienna. With strong ties to techno, it gained acclaim on a global level among fans of experimental electronic music.

 

Inside the listening room visitors can listen to the entire catalogue of Editions Mego in random order, offering an opportunity for immersion—in a non-linear way—into the worlds of the many talents who have been part of the label’s history, starting with the historic debut album Fridge Trax EP (1995), produced by the three founders using recorded samples of the sounds made by refrigerators.

A history of sonic research that includes musicians ranging from Fennesz, Pita, Florian Hecker, Russell Haswell and Felix Kubin to Emeralds, Oneohtrix Point Never, Prurient, all the way to younger talents like Caterina Barbieri and Lorenzo Senni, without overlooking the great masters of the avant-garde like Luc Ferrari, Pierre Schaeffer, Iannis Xenakis.

 

Today, Editions Mego also offers a series of sub-labels, directly curated by musicians who collaborate with the label, such as Spectrum Spools by John Elliot, Ideologic Organ by Stephen O’Malley and Old News by Jim O’Rourke.

 

Since 2012, with the aim of fostering an awareness of the history of electronic music in the present, the company collaborates with the Paris-based institution GRM (Groupe De Recherches Musicales), on a series of reissues of works by the masters of musique concrète and electroacoustic experimentation.  

 


 

PETER REHBERG a.k.a. Pita (London, 1968) is an author and performer of electronic audio works based in Vienna. He is considered one of the leading figures of the experimental electronic music scene. Heading the label Editions Mego, he was part of the first batch of artists to turn to mobile computing devices for the presentation of live audio performances in the mid-1990s. He has collaborated live and in the studio with, amongst others, Jim O’Rourke and Christian Fennesz (as Fenn O’Berg), Stephen O’Malley (as KTL), Gisele Vienne, Peterlicker, Z’EV, Russell Haswell, Florian Hecker, Meg Stuart, Chris Haring, Marcus Schmickler, Jade, Sunn O))), as well as being a member of MIMEO. In 1999 he received the Prix Ars Electronica Distinction Award for Digital Music alongside Christian Fennesz.  


 

With the support of Forum Austriaco di Cultura Roma.
Heartfelt thanks to all artists who have been part of the label in the last twentyfive years.
Curator: Luca Lo Pinto
Coordinated by Lisa Andreani (curatorial) and Veronica Botta (production)
Exhibitions and Research Assistants: Giulia Caruso, Maria Vittoria Di Sabatino, Alessia Procopio
Graphic production: SP Systema