Menstrual Recordings is an Italian experimental, industrial and noise imprint founded 2005 by Alessandro Bosello (who also operates the Dedali noise / experimental project) and Alessandro Camardo. The imprint operates mainly as vehicle for the deluxe limited-edition reissue programme of Maurizio Bianchi / M.B. / Sacher-Pelz material across the 1979–1984 cassette and LP catalogue, and later as collaboration partner with M.B. through the Dedali / M.B. series. The Bureau's editorial reading positions Menstrual Recordings at Tier II as one of the Italian partners for the post-1998 Bianchi reissue programme.
The founding programme routes through Bosello's twin position as collector / archivist of the early Italian post-industrial catalogue and as active practitioner through the Dedali project. The 2005 founding moment establishes a specialised reissue imprint focused initially on M.B.'s catalogue and the adjacent Italian noise / industrial archive. The position parallels but is structurally distinct from Vinyl-on-Demand's larger European archival programme: where VOD operates at multi-LP-box scale across hundreds of releases, Menstrual Recordings operates at very-small-edition boutique-archival scale (typically 26-300 copies) with the focus tightly concentrated on a narrower core catalogue, with detail-quality and packaging-as-artefact constitutional to the working programme.
The M.B. partnership is the imprint's position. Bianchi's catalogue across 1979–1984 had circulated in original cassette and LP editions in very small numbers; the post-1998 reissue programme had been mainly handled through EEs'T Records (Emanuele Carcano's primary partner imprint) alongside the international archival contributions of Dais Records (Brooklyn / LA), Hot Releases (Carrboro, North Carolina), Hospital Productions (the 2007 Symphony for a Genocide reissue), Vinyl-on-Demand (the five-LP archival box), and Old Europa Cafe (the Italian partner). Menstrual Recordings emerges in 2005 as additional Italian partner specialising specifically in the obscure private-cassette catalogue (the 1980–1981 home-recorded Mectpyo Studio material) and in the controversial / disavowed material (the 2013 Teban Slide Art 3CD box restored the Leibstandarte SS MB material to authentic M.B. credit).
The Sacher-Pelz catalogue is one of the imprint's most significant archival projects. The 4-CD Mutation For A Continuity anthologises the four Sacher-Pelz cassettes (Cainus 1979, Venus 1979–1980, Cease To Exist, Velours) released by Bianchi August 1979 onward under the pseudonym taken from Sacher-Masoch's Venus im Pelz. The cassette format had circulated in very small numbers contemporaneously; the Menstrual Recordings anthology provides the canonical Sacher-Pelz CD-format document. Adjacent projects include M.B.'s 1980–1981 private cassettes (Gene P, Mectpyo Blut) which receive deluxe first-ever-CD reissue treatment with original 1980–1981 M.B. artwork preserved on the fold-out covers.
The Dedali / M.B. collaboration cycle constitutes the imprint's second axis. Elektro Tones (2015) is the document: a collaboration between M.B. / Maurizio Bianchi and Dedali (Alessandro Bosello) released in 26 alphabetised collector copies in a DVD case with obi strip containing the bonus split CD Dedali / M.B. - Profana Liturgija, plus track-list and album-detail cards and one card signed by both M.B. and Dedali. The collaboration cycle continues with further Dedali / M.B. material across the late 2010s; later Dedali material includes the Bleeding Images split with Murder Corporation (Moreno Daldosso) where the opening track is again a collaboration with M.B. (titled "The Shedding"). The dual position as both archival imprint and active-collaboration partner with the artist whose archive it mainly documents is structurally distinctive within the European post-industrial reissue infrastructure.
The adjacent founding roster extends considerably. The Swastika Kommando 1983 reissue documents Pietro Mazzocchin's early-1980s industrial / noise project (one of several names Mazzocchin operated under, including The New Sadism, Observation Clinique and Lyoto Music with Pierpaolo Zoppo of Mauthausen Orchestra; Mazzocchin left the scene 1985). The Pierpaolo Zoppo / Mauthausen Orchestra Necrosi Statica one-sided LP rescues another corner of the early-1980s Italian harsh-electronics catalogue. Merzbow reissue material extends the catalogue's international reach. Dedali material under Bosello's own name sits in-house. The compilation-and-remastering practice (per Chain DLK's 2013 notes: "compiled and re-mastered in 2010 & 2013 by Alessandro Bosello & Alessandro Camardo") sustains across the catalogue.
The Bureau's editorial position: Menstrual Recordings is filed at Tier II as one of the Italian partners for the post-1998 Maurizio Bianchi reissue programme and adjacent Italian noise archival rescue. The boutique-archival method (very-small-edition, deluxe-packaging, in-house remastering) distinguishes the imprint from the larger-scale European archival operations and sustains the focus on a narrowly defined core catalogue. The dual position as archival imprint and active-collaboration partner with M.B. through the Dedali project is structurally distinctive. The catalogue continues at small-edition scale through the 2010s and 2020s with the menstrualrecordings.org web-shop the direct-sales infrastructure alongside Old Europa Cafe, Soleilmoon, Tesco Organization and the European experimental-music distribution network.
Filed by Bureau editor · VAGO · c. the Elizabethan era · last revised c. the Holocene era