It may seem awkward to praise too much Umpio, when the man himself lurks on this forum occasionally. But can't really use that as excuse while listening to new CD reissue: Pantanothing.
Narcolepsia and Ominous recordings did nice job with good quality cardboard sleeve re-issue. 2014-2016 era Umpio compiles together harsh junk works as well as more electronic works. They blend in nicely. All material was published in 2017 as tape, but clearly labels thought it's too good to remain small tape edition, therefore CD was issued.
It's easy to see and hear how release is sort of ahead of early days Muelas -album era. It has sonically similarity with 3" on Freak Animal. That release is such a intense release, it's not easy to match the unexpect collision of sharp clarity and brutality, all compressed into short duration. We have partly the same thing here, but stretched to longer release. Coarse and brutalist junk noise tracks, but also atmospheric electronics and things between.
Listening to Umpio / Creation Through Destruction split tape, prooves it's sometimes hard to say if Umpio has advanced or not. It changes, but quality is always there. This split material is from 2014 and hyperactive blasting harsh noise is occasionally seemingly more intense and with more punch than some later works, but in other hand, other works have other qualities that make them better.
Fractured timeline makes it harder to see how Umpio has developed his style. Some of these 2010-15 recordings that fall into harsh noise era, have been published a bit later or yet to properly be distributed. Meanwhile, there was Opium Electronics series that took sound to new realms. Latest tape I noticed to be published in 2018, is also older works recorded c. 3 years ago? Meanwhile, as far as I know, project has been approaching digital modular approach. But injecting the experiments of digital modulations into analogue treatment of running it through tapes etc. It is most likely different what some people expect Umpio to be, but already now project has proven that it has many faces and unusual personal style for both source sounds and composition.
I have hard time to conclude the absolute highlights of Umpio discography. Of course Freak Animal's releases are among them, being reasons why I put them out. But then again, some small print run old tape may feel like ripping all things apart, being most intense material produced to date. Making one feel that there should be more coherent collection of 10 years of Umpio!
