Umpio — Kulotus

Kulotus is a two-CD set that compiles together ten years’ worth of cassette releases from Umpio- aka Pori, Finland based noisemaker Pentti Dassum. In total, the release features twelve tracks and nearing eight-nine minutes of noise- that often fairly textured, dense, yet subtly shifting/ developing in its attack

The two-CD set comes presented in a glossy six-panel mini gatefold. On its outside we have a colour picture of forest/ health land engulfed with a raging fire, and inside grey texturing and grey circuit board photos, which are overlaid with black texts. The details about what’s here/ where it was originally released is rather sparse with just simply ‘fire elektronix to tape 2010-2019’. The release is a joint venture between Portuguese Narcolepsia and Finland’s Hiisi Productions- with the release ltd to 200 copies.
 
Disc one is sub-titled Part I, and this features five tracks in total with a runtime of 47.50. The track’s here move from the tightly tense electro chop & feast, meets moody rips ‘n’ tears of "Oktopus Elektronix" – with later on in the tracks near seven-minute runtime some higher-pitched forks coming into play on this large low to mid-ranged track. There’s the looped slice ‘n’ muffled whistling ear wincing flow of "Glass Crunch Snack", which is also fairly long at nearing the sixteen minutes mark. With this first disc been topped off with the nearing five and a half minutes of “Phantom Pulse”- which ties together churning and undulating static sear, with moments of sudden grind, fork, and scream, with some neat robot voice like electro chatters ‘n’ slice coming into way along the tracks length.
 
Disc number two features seven tracks, with a total runtime of 39.27- and largely the tracks here are shorter with only one track hitting over the ten-minute mark. The disc kicks off with choppy static ‘n’ squeaky swing -meets- atmospheric wind sounds of “Concrete Mouthwash”- and this runs just shy of the three-minute mark, been a great shorter example of Umpio noise making. There’s the electro swirling, muffled and reduced bass opening of “Acoustic Parasite”- which later on in its just sly of eight-minute run time shifts into louder blend hacking crunch and high pitch sear. With the disc playing out with the wonderfully titled “ Separation Of A Nail From Finger” which is just over two and a half minutes of cluttering ‘n’ crusty static abuse and blunt juddering crackle.
 
 
In finishing Kulotus is a nice two-disc set- highlight Umpio distinctive take on harsh noise. It would have been nice if there had been a little more detail about the origins each of the tracks- but that’s a minor gripe. If you like often densely textured noise craft, this is most certainly something you'll be needing to tracking down.