Umpio is not "alter ego" or "stage name" of Penti Dassum. It is a sort of separated place in reality where research and experiments on extreme sound are carried out. The project was founded in 2006 straight after his constructing a contact microphone which served to amplify the sound of metal objects used as percussion instruments in bands such as Astro Can Caravan and Kroko. The next step in the development of Umpio was an even deeper journey into areas noise psychedelia, home-made instruments and experiments with electroacoustics. Dassum crystallised his own unique style, which he calls Junkyard Elektroautistix. His work is based on the strengthened sound of scrap metal, distorted electronics and autistic contemplation which - although seemingly calm - is filled with hypodermic energy emanating in all directions at once.

 

TORBA (IT)

Torba (Italian for peat) is a musical project of Mauro Diciocia, an Italian sound artist residing in Berlin. His compositions are built on the basis of noises, crackles, noise walls, harsh sounds of amplified objects, tape manipulation and field recordings. The characteristic sound design can be heard on his last album artist "Sqòrt" published in 2016.

 

MAAAA (FIN/PL)

Hailing from Karelia (lying on the Russian and Finnish border), MAAAA has been active in the noise scene for over a decade. In the initial stage of its activity the project was a punk collective comprised of as many as 10 performers. Today it is a solo project led by Sergei Hanolainen - an immigrant from Russia, permanently residing in Poland. The concert is a promotion of his latest album "Abhorrence and Dismay" - the first release in six years comprised of two post-industrial suites clearly and definitely outside the noise genre. The narrative of the album is dynamically conducted using a wide range of sounds - destroyed tape loops, amplified physical objects, field recordings and jagged passages characteristic of the harsh noise genre. "Abhorrence and Dismay" escapes the unambiguous classification, and is so far the most mature album of the artist.