Peter Rehberg, founder of Editions Mego, has died

The musician and innovator has passed away.

According to The Guardian, Rehberg died of a heart attack. He was 53. French label INA-GRM confirmed the news this morning (23 July) with a statement that reads: “It is with infinite sadness that we have learned that Peter Rehberg is gone. Together with Peter Rehberg and his label Editions Mego, the GRM launched the Recollection GRM series in 2012 and more recently the Portraits GRM series.”

“It is thanks to Peter Rehberg’s unparalleled probity and enthusiasm that these initiatives have been successful.”

The statement continues: “Beyond his considerable work with running a label, Peter Rehberg was an exceptional artist. No other musician could so skillfully merge sonic energies and densities with an abrasive and melancholic musical sensibility.”

The musician was born in London in 1968, and began releasing music in 1995. Under the name Pita, he released the debut album Seven Tons for Free. Rehberg went on to helm a number of projects, founding the Viennese experimental label Mego in 1994 and later rebranding it as Editions Mego in 2006. With the label, he released music from the likes of Oneohtrix Point Never and Mark Fell, and reissued works from GRM.

In 2006, he also formed the group KLT with Stephen O’Malley and later, in 2017, teamed up with Factory Floor’s Nik Void to launch the collaborative project NPVR.

Collaborator François J Bonnet – who performs under the name Kassel Jaeger – has paid tribute to the musician online, writing: “He was one of the most kind, loyal and reliable people I have ever known. I feel privileged to have known him, to have collaborated with him and to have been his friend. I owe him so much. So do many of us.”

“Over the years, his music has become denser. It was still radical and bold, but it was also deeper, more ambivalent, more moving too. It revealed unfathomable depths. We sometimes forget how talented a musician Peter Rehberg was, because of so much energy he devoted to the music of others. But he was an amazing musician.”

 

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