CDOTD #2 4/05/2023

 Maurizio Bianchi: Men's True Hated (Menstrual Recordings)

Purchased through mail order from a discogs.com store

Second MB of the day. The previous post was a recent recording, 2021; this is from 2005. Not as current but still after returning from retirement.

There's a problem with many original power electronics recordings. The often do more than just flirt with fascist, or even Nazi, imagery. Sometimes I know it's bullshit, to be shocking, or to hold up the ugliest imagery and representations of humanity to accompany the ugliness of the music. Once in a rare while it might even be darkly satirical.

In some cases it's true. What I find to be laughable is that true Nazis would have nothing to do with harsh noise music. I mean, do you think Hitler would have appreciated the noisemaking of Grey Wolves or Streicher? Hell no!

The problem is, it's hard to tell who's who sometimes.

Because I'm a fan of MB's work (the post-turntable analog recordings) I don't want to sound defensive of him. I think his interests have always been more eschatological, apocalyptic. There's an image in one of the box sets I have of his early work. It's a picture of a mushroom cloud, with the MB logo drawn over it, and the word "WHEN?" written. Maybe it's not so surprising that he turned to religion.

I found a listing for him on an Italian page of "Famous Jehovah's Witnesses." Wha? You have to go pretty far down the list to consider Maurizio "famous." You do get to see a picture of him that's under ten years old though: https://jwvips.blogspot.com/2018/06/13-maurizio-bianchi-1955-vivente.html

My favorite picture of MB is this snapshot from the 80s, I'd guess while on vacation:

So that's the Italian king of noise, eh? 

This disc. In addition to the eschatology I've mentioned, there are sometimes references or menstruation. I'm not exactly sure why, but I'm convinced it's not a fetish thing for him, more likely a fear of it. Or, maybe he's trying to add to the shock value too. The title here, Men's True Hated ("menstruated"). On Menstrual Recordings, catalog #1 no less. I don't think it's his label, but I have to assume it's named because of him.

I made an order from the label directly once. We got it worked out, but I didn't understand about adding the postage and it was a bit of a hassle. Unfortunately, it's sometimes very hard to come by records on the label in the US. 

The sound sources and recording techniques are digital, but why would I expect otherwise? It's loosely in a category of dark ambient I suppose, or noisy ambient? His early recordings would frequently go quite long on a single side of a tape of record album; his LPs often push the length of the sides. Nothing here is short, but everything fits within a five and a half to seven minute range. I prefer the MB that throws on the noise machines and echos and lets it roll on and on. I like pieces of this, but it's not what would have sold me on his work if it was what I had initially listened to.

Let me quote the notes, for a clue about his interesting take on the English language:

 "Dysmenorrhoeic dissonances for floating keyboards, diagnostic modulations and absorbent strings, discharged during the autumn of 2005."

I have no clue what he means by the first word, whose spelling I checked three times.