Peter Rehberg Dead At 53
Peter Rehberg, the avant-garde electronic musician who often recorded as Pita and who was partly responsible for running the label Editions Mego, has died. The Guardian reports that Rehberg died after suffering a heart attack. He was 53.
Rehberg was born in the UK, but he eventually moved to Austria and making glitchy, experimental electronic music. In 1996, under the name Pita, Rehberg released his debut album Seven Tons For Free on the label that was then known as Mego. The first release on Mego was a 1995 split from Pita and General Magic, and Rehberg became hugely important in the label’s evolution. Rehberg helped to run Mego until it shut down in 2005, and then he restarted it the next year as Editions Mego. With Rehberg running the label, Editions Mego put out records from artists like Fennesz, Hecker, and Jim O’Rourke.
Rehberg kept making music as Pita, and he also collaborated with people like Fennesz and O’Rourke. Rehberg also formed a couple of collaborative projects, including KTL, with Sun O)))’s Stephen O’Malley, and NPVR, with Factory Floor’s Nik Void. The last of Rehberg’s work to be released in his lifetime was the KTL album VII, which came out less than a year ago. Below, check out some of Rehberg’s work.