Mectpyo Box

Liner Note Author: Maurizio Bianchi.
Recording information: Mectpyo Sounds (1981).
Director: Gary Mundy.
This limited-edition box set contains ten albums by Italian industrial noise pioneer Maurizio Bianchi (M.B.), all of which date from the first phase of his career before he retired from music in the early '80s, eventually to return in the late '90s. His vast catalog has spanned hundreds of releases on countless labels, and has ranged from fluid ambient to noisy drone to power electronics. Much of the material on this box set leans toward Bianchi's more rhythmic side, with primitive drum machines trudging through dive-bombing feedback and dentist-drill noise. Harrowing masterpiece Symphony for a Genocide (1981) begins the box set with a series of punishing tracks named after World War II concentration camps. Harsh, unsettling listening, but his command of pulverizing rhythms and eardrum-bursting feedback was unparalleled, and helped set the stage for much of the experimental and industrial music that followed. 1982's Neuro Habitat adds dubby echo, washes of static, and eerie horror movie synths, bringing the suspense to a new level. Regel continues in this vein, and even clears out the noise a bit, prefiguring the ambient direction he'd go in with some of his later work. Some of the later discs, such as Endometrio and Carcinosi, are a bit more monolithic, setting up thick, impenetrable walls of noise. Exhausting and comprehensive, this box set collects a sizable portion of the early discography of an important experimental artist. While the box set itself might be extremely hard to come by, all of the albums contained within have been reissued individually. The best ones to start with would be Symphony for a Genocide and Neuro Habitat. ~ Paul Simpson