MB

Maurizio Bianchi (b. 1955, Pomponesco, Italy) began releasing cassettes from Milan in August 1979 under the pseudonym Sacher-Pelz before working under his own initials, MB, from around 1980 — dense, corrosive tape-manipulation pieces drawing on Tangerine Dream, Conrad Schnitzler, and Throbbing Gristle. He corresponded through the early 1980s with fellow noise and industrial artists including Merzbow, GX Jupitter-Larsen, SPK, and William Bennett of Whitehouse, and the controversial imagery of his 1981 LP Symphony for a Genocide placed him at the center of early industrial music’s use of atrocity as material. Bianchi became a Jehovah’s Witness in 1983 and withdrew from music entirely until 1998, when Emanuele Carcano of Alga Marghen encouraged him to resume recording; since then he has released well over a hundred works, including a trio of collaborations with Merzbow — Amniocentesi / Envoise 30 05 82, Merzbow Meets M.B., and Amalgamelody.