US imprint Hot Releases has reissued Maurizio Bianchi‘s The Plain Truth on vinyl.

Bianchi was a key player in the 1980s industrial scene, and since 1980 has used electronic equipment to work towards, as he puts it, a “complete realising of the modern decadence”. He retired from music-making in 2009, but his varied output continues to be influential on both noise artists and those working in the more ambient-leaning, isolationist realm.

In 1981 Bianchi, who hails from Pomponesco, was signed by Whitehouse’s William Bennett to his Come Org. label. Without the permission of Bianchi, Bennett edited Nazi leaders’ speeches into the Italian artist’s Triumph Of The Will and Weltanschauung tapes, and published them under the name Leibstandarte SS MB (a reference to the SS unit that guarded Adolf Hitler). Bianchi was understandably furious at these offensive interventions – he publicly disowned the albums soon after, and has excluded them from his official discography ever since.

Aside from those notorious Come Org. tapes, Bianchi has released well over fifty solo albums, and almost as many collaborative LPs. The Plain Truth, credited to M.B., is one of his strongest and most accessible works, and was originally released in 1983 by the Broken Flag label, in an edition of 500. Consisting of layered synthesizer sounds, it’s a haunting but very warm-sounding work, and will appeal to fans of Lull, The Caretaker, Thomas Koner and the like.

Tracklist:
A1. The Plain Truth
B1. M.B. 55
B2. T.D. 56