See Through Buildings: CALIFORNIA SCREAMIN'

Thanks to the warm response to the KIRA feature, I knew another noise interview was

more than inevitable, and you can be damn sure this one won’t be the last either!

For those of you who don’t know, let me introduce you to Ben Rehling, hardened veteran of the US noise scene in the late 80s and throughout the 90s, playing in hell-raising duo Jennifer Wolski. 
A true noise architect and experimentalist to the core, he now resides in GardenGrove, California under his new guise ‘See Through Buildings.’

He champions fellow underground artists and regularly dishes up sanity-crushing splits as well as full lengths that push him and his sound to the places others wish they had the conviction to tread.

On April 15th, Ben released “brain scans revealed a general lack of knowledge” which as the title suggests, takes actual sounds from different levels of Brain Scans, one of his most mind-melting efforts since re-joining the noise fray in 2015. 

In 3 tracks, ‘BSRAGLOK’ picks up your mind, throws it boomerang-style around the room, then slam-dunks it back into your skull. Even me trying to describe it won't do it justice, so listen below: 

Ben gives it to us straight about the good ol’ days of buying music before paypal, the state of the current scene and reveals all about his drone jar….

DMD: When were you first introduced to Noise/HNW and what first inspired you to start experimenting with Noise/HNW/field recordings of your own?

Ben Rehling: Tough one to answer as it was almost a natural tendency that I would end up in this realm at some point. Growing up I also leaned toward the weirder side of music. If it was Top 40 radio music, I tended to like the stranger looking bands, weirder lyrics, things like that. The dirtier and sleazier the hair metal, the faster the thrash metal, the more brutal the death metal, the darker the industrial etc. 

I have a huge pallet of musical interests but honestly if I narrow it down, jazz really was the clincher. I spent a lot of time listening to my father's jazz collection and jazz in general. You begin to listen for odd time changes, chaotic drum breaks, saxophone solos that wail seemingly aimlessly...

The improvised nature of jazz was a huge stepping stone to seek out band leaders and performers that stretched their projects to the maximum. Whether it be Miles Davis bending genres, John Coltrane taking long spiritual trips, Yusef Lateef playing every instrument known to man or John Zorn tying together many genres into a chaotic harmony. Obviously Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman blew my mind with what they did. 

I moved in 1988 to Livonia, Michigan when I was 15 years old. I was heavily obsessed with record stores and music and used to ride my bike to Record Collector. There I would spend hours with the guys at the shop who had their own noise band, Princess Dragon Mom. 

Finally I found a place that actually sold noise that I could buy whenever I wanted instead of (like today) having to hunt it down in message groups online to buy. Back then there was no streaming or downloading music. My first Black Leather Jesus cassette was purchased by sending cash in a damn envelope not via PayPal. 

In college I met a guy named Jay who was annoying as fuck. But through him I met Dave and we had a mutual interest in noise. We started the noise project Jennifer Wolski and recorded a ton of self releases cassettes, 3 7" releases (the final was with Macronympha) and played some shows around Detroit. We just did very loose chaotic noise improvisation coupled with all kinds of crazy recordings. Nearly 98% of what we did was recorded live to tape in one take with whoever was there with us joining in. I played mostly drums, broken cymbals, vacuum cleaners, etc. I have no real musical experience. I moved out of Michigan to California in 2000 and that ended my first experience being knee deep into noise. 

Work and life got in the way of doing noise and then via a chance meeting with Cody from Kearne on a damn Instagram post, I decided to start recording again as See Through Buildings. The rest is history at this point. I had never heard the term Harsh Noise Wall until I saw an old article with an old acquaintance who said that in his mind my old noise duo was on the forefront of that genre.

 I started working on building up my gear and went into making long form pieces like I used to.

DMD: On April the first, you posted ‘ride the grooves into the morning’ stating that it was a return to your ‘chopped up sound’ roots, was that an April fools joke?

Ben: Not a total April Fool's joke but a sad attempt at a tribute to one of my favorite projects Violent Onsen Geisha. Always loved how there was random noise and music playing at the same time. When I first started doing noise in the early 90s I had zero equipment and recorded live to tape by using all found sounds and random music.

I Also did vinyl cut ups using Barbara Streisand records that were donated to the library I worked at when I was 15. Now that I have some equipment it is fun to mess around and see what comes out but sometimes it is just experimenting as this is the first time I have actually used a mixer, 8 track, pedals, etc. 

DMD: From growing up until now, what musical instruments did you play? 

Ben: Drumming was always something that I did. Starting out in around 4th grade I did all percussion for school bands and things like that. I don't consider myself a drummer because I don’t have the memory for music. I mainly improv everything. As for bands, I did play drums for a grind/punk/noise project called 5 Deadly Venoms when I lived in Michigan. We recorded a Slayer tribute 7" compilation on our label and our only live show was opening for Melt Banana in Detroit around 1997. I have played drums for some one-off sludge side projects and at noise shows with my first project, Jennifer Wolski.

DMD: You have been using the Tascam DR-05 personal recorder for your field recordings, would you say that it’s a reliable piece of tech?

Ben: The Tascam DR-05 was the first piece of recording equipment I have ever worked with. In my other projects, I just did the noise and the other guy did the mixing and mastering. So once I started out on my own I had to learn everything. The DR-05 worked amazingly well and was able to capture all kinds of sounds and tones "live" during recordings and especially when doing field recordings. One of my first releases for a label was all ocean waves recording on it. Back in December I finally got a Tascam 8 track and started to learn how to use that for most of the recordings done this year. 

DMD: Please tell us about the gear you use to make noise, I am also interested to find out about the ‘drone jar’ I have seen in your Facebook photos…

Ben: Like I said, I had zero gear when I started See Through Buildings. My wife had a couple pedals and guitars but those are her babies so I did not want to use them for noise. When I met Cody from Kearne he turned me onto the Palindrome from Audible Disease so all my early recordings used that and a BOSS Distortion pedal. Then I bought my wife an Eventide Space pedal and used those three for a while. Currently I have added a Big Muff, some cheap FAB Metal and Distortion pedals and my little KORG Delay Monotron. 

The drone jar is a crazy little machine. Pretty much a glass jar with 3 light sensors. Any change in light will either send it off whining and screaming or I will use painter's tape and get more of a rumble out of it. The sound is very unpredictable so if I am doing a solid wall I will use it in the dark so the tone doesn't change. If I am just going all out noise, I'll just have flashing lights on it. I picked that up for $45 from Rucci Handmade Electronic Instruments. I Definitely will be adding more pedals to the gear soon. I also layer in the usual AM/FM radio stations and use the loop station a lot.

DMD: What would be your Noise Desert Island Disks and who are some of your favourite current noise artists?

Ben: This is almost impossible to narrow down, so I may have to go the cheap route and list artists. I was a huge fan of early Boredoms, Merzbow and Masonna in the early 90’s so there are some standouts from those that would be there. Aube, KK Null, Slap Happy Humphrey, Violent Onsen Geisha, Haters, Smegma, Black Leather Jesus etc. Gravitar was one of my favorites from Michigan and a band I played with a lot with my old noise duo. 

Current ones would be Bullshit Market, Kearne, Black Sheet Servitude, Melinoe, Big Hole, Misery Ritual, Monological Terrorist, Curses, Phantasm Nocturnes, Methlab Explosion, Condo Horro and so many more. Of course Macronympha also as I did do some releases with Mother Savage Noise Productions back in the day as Jennifer Wolski and we were featured on the Underground USA compilation with many great artists. 

DMD: I know it's kind of old news now, but what were your thoughts on the Full of Hell and Merzbow collaboration album back in 2014? and....What are your thoughts on the younger generation picking up the mixer and pedals and making noise? (i.e Kira)

Ben: In regards to the younger generation, I have to say I am incredibly impressed with what I have seen in my last year or so of starting to do noise again. It was not hard to make noise when I originally started but you did not have all the forums to present your projects like you see now (Facebook, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, etc). It was much harder to get info out there but that also made it fun. I figured that I would just do releases on Bandcamp, possibly figure out how to self release some items and just do that. I never expected to meet so many people and projects and get to work with many great labels.

All these new avenues are definitely giving a lot of the younger people a great foundation to work with. Vincent from Kira already had multiple projects but once he started doing noise it was amazing to see how he had no real gear but just kept focusing on developing his sound and then started to add more gear as he could. What impresses me about him is how seriously he takes but how professionally he presents all of his projects. 

I have also had the pleasure of working with Logan from Monological Terrorist (now ruiner.) and the moment he started his latest project, his sound just morphed into this crazy suffocating noise. The passion he has for the genre in general is infectious but what is great is that while he takes his shit very seriously, he also has a lot of fun and a great personality. 

While I could cop out and say it is so much easier now to be into and do noise, the problem is that there is the appearance "that anyone can do it" because you can self release all day long and barely need gear. But it is really about how much you put yourself into the music/project, how much you appreciate it, how much you are willing to experiment and grow and stretch your sounds. Some people like Kyle from Misery Ritual will take all of all that and package it together into an incredibly intense and physical live show and some will prefer to leave it all in the studio and let the tracks speak for themselves. There is a lot the younger kids can offer as long as they care about the genre and take their craft seriously.

On the Full Of Hell and Merzbow release, I can honestly say that I do not have much of an opinion. Have not spent much time listening to Full Of Hell and honestly haven't listened to anything Merzbow has done in the past 20 years. I think the overall release sounded mostly like Full Of Hell and less of Merzbow with the exception of maybe a couple tracks. I also feel though that it is not some big stretch in regards to the pairing. Honestly I would prefer to listen to OLD to get that spastic noise feeling like that instead of the FOH/Merzbow. Maybe it sounds a little weird but Full Of Hell can feel a little "clean" to me at times in regards to production. Not a horrible band but I tend to like Hellnation, Drop Dead, Siege etc. Merzbow had his place in my early views of noise but as the decades went on I was always looking for something more than what he offered. Either more experimental like Keiji Haino or just more extreme in  general... 

DMD: For those just getting into noise, could you tell the difference between HNW and just plain old fashioned Noise?

Ben: My personal opinion is that there are just too many labels and I just always referred to everything as either noise or harsh noise. But in general most people will look at HNW as just being a wall of noise. Some prefer an almost unchanging long track that you can just get lost in the longer you listen. Some like to layer some textures and sounds so there is a shift in the tracks as they listen.

If I am set up and turn on my pedals and it sounds like it would make for an interesting 10-20 minute unchanging track I will run with it. If I start out and something sounds a little too static and less dynamic, then I will start making changes throughout the recording either to the EQ, blow out the mid ranges, let the Palindrome just go off all over etc. 

I tend to like texture and volume, whereas some people will go with "ambient noise wall" with a quieter rumble. Unless the piece I am recording is expected to be HNW I usually don't start recording with a specific idea in mind to just make that. Sometimes I honestly will get sidetracked, forget I was recording directly to the 8 track and come back 35 minutes later to some massive track that was only supposed to be 10 minutes!

listen to See Through Buildings on bandcamp here

on soundcloud here

and like his facebook page here


For more HNW reading, check out:

Interview with James Shearman of A Raja's Mesh Men here 

Interview with Nemanja Nikolić of Dosis letalis here

KIRA: NOISE JERSEY

Noise still and probably always will remain a genre for the outsiders.

Only being pursued by the 110% dedicated, hiding away unseen honing their craft full in the knowledge that such a musical goal isn’t going to win them stadiums full of admirers and mainstream media coverage. 

They follow the static ridden path in pursuit of making the ultimate artistic statement and self expression by pushing boundaries of what is deemed musically acceptable and bearable.

Vincent Ceraso is one such lone ranger, only 21 years of age, and based in New Jersey Vincent began laying down primal monolithic walls of harsh noise with first such project Blutbad (German word for carnage) which in total had 23 releases (2 of which were demos) before ending in September.

Adapting a different approach and experimenting with new equipment, the next month KIRA was born.

At the turn of February 2016, Vincent released his first full length album under the KIRA moniker entitled: Modernism Tragedy. 17 mind melting, nerve shattering tracks of demented audio. It is undoubtably his most accessible release to date and sees KIRA knocking down several of the noise walls he once resided in, and letting inside drone, dark ambient, minimalist and more eclectic influences.

(You can read my thoughts on Modernism Tragedy at the bottom of this feature)

Despite the dark and radical nature of his music, Vincent seemed a cheery lad and was more than happy to have a quick chat and answer a few questions on KIRA:

DMD: What were your first musical instruments and musical influences growing up?

K: Growing up, I was a HUGE fan of Green Day and Blink-182, two bands that opened me up to the world of music! They were the bands that got me into playing guitar and drums. I still play guitar, but not so much the drums anymore. In high school, I was introduced to the band Silverstein, and that was the band that made me want to start playing bass guitar, and in 2012, I was pulled on stage very briefly to play a song with them!

DMD: Wait…you performed with Silverstein? or did I just read that wrong? 

K: You definitely DID NOT read that wrong! They did a tour in support of "Short Songs” and as a joke, my old bass teacher and I learned the song "See Ya Bill!" which is only a few seconds long. Long story short, I met Billy Hamilton at the venue and told him that, and he asked if I wanted to play with them later. They then pulled me on stage to play the song three times, and it was amazing!

DMD: Sick! So what do you like to do in your spare time when you're not making music? 

K: The very little time I spend not making music (I have over a dozen music projects), I'm usually in school or at work. I also like to draw and watch cartoons. Sorry, but I'm just a very boring person that loves music!

DMD: What music are you currently into?

 K: I’m into a little bit of everything! Country, metal, hip-hop, you name it! My favorite genre would probably be powerviolence, which is very raw and incredibly fast-paced, just the way I like music. I tried to start a powerviolence band months ago before KIRA got started, but that didn't exactly go well…Some of my favorite bands in powerviolence and extreme metal include: Infest, Coke Bust, Full of Hell, Napalm Death, Nails, Dying Fetus, etc. In fact I'll be seeing Nails and Dying Fetus in Philly this April, so pray that I don't die!

DMD: Do you play in any bands that make ‘normal’ music? 

K: I played bass guitar in a band called Tragic Life from August of 2014 to June of 2015. Our sound (at the time I was in the band) combined heavy hardcore music with some elements of fast-paced Power-Violence. Sadly, I had to leave the band because of school and other priorities I was faced with. I played a total of four shows with them. They're still a band, and have an EP called "Cathedral of Despair" coming out soon!

DMD: What does the name KIRA mean? does it stand for something?

K: I get asked this quite a bit. KIRA is a reference to the popular Japanese Anime "Death Note". As explained in the show, "Kira" is derived from the word "killer", and is used as a nickname for the anti-hero Light Yagami. Around that time, I was having a hard time thinking of what to call the project. I heard Kira and thought the name and meaning behind the word sounded pretty interesting!

DMD: Why did Blutbad come to an end?

K: Blutbad was extremely sloppy and very un-organized. For starters, I used an old alarm clock radio to record walls with. Sometimes, just because I was incredibly lazy, I'd take a previous wall from one of the older tapes and re-use it, but change it around a bit to pass it off as a brand new recording, when in reality, I was practically copying and pasting the older tracks. Once I purchased pedals and a mixer, I thought about continuing with Blutbad, but then realized I wanted a fresh start. A couple weeks later, I dropped the first KIRA demo, and it was very well received!

DMD: Is there a scene for the music you make in New Jersey?

K: The music scene here in New Jersey mostly consists of metal, punk, emo, etc. Not much in the way of an actual "noise" music scene, compared to Massachusetts and California, although from what I've heard, Pennsylvania has a bit of a noise scene unlike Jersey!

DMD: what first inspired you to start making noise music?

K: My old band mate Spencer at practice one day showed me a video of Vomir on YouTube performing at Ende Tymes Festival a few years ago. At first I thought, "What the hell is this garbage? Its just a bunch of people wearing bags over their heads and listening to some guy produce static for 30 minutes!!" As much as I hated it, I was so intrigued that I found myself going back to that video, and listening to his tapes on YouTube. Eventually, it became an obsession, and before I knew it, I was on a mission to find whatever Vomir tape I could download on the internet!

DMD: How would you describe the music of KIRA?

K: At first, KIRA started off as strictly HNW. All I wanted to do was make 20+ minute walls. But that got old pretty quick, so I wanted to experiment a little bit. After purchasing more equipment, I tried adding elements of power electronics in my tracks, which is what my most recent releases consist of! Whenever I do splits or collaborations, I might go back to my roots of making those full-length walls!

DMD: So what equipment do you use in KIRA?

K: I use a tiny, 10-watt amplifier from Dean Guitars that I got for my 14th birthday, DigiTech Death Metal and DigiTech Grunge pedals, Electro-Harmonix Metal Muff Distortion pedal (borrowed from a friend), and a FAB Distortion pedal! As for recording, I used to use Garageband and a Blue Yeti microphone, and while I still use those, I've been trying out the voice recording app on my phone a lot lately!

DMD: KIRA and Blutbad have a lot of releases on band camp in a short space of time why is that? (Co-incidentally KIRA released a split with ​Koobaatoo Asparagus on February 23rd)

K: Simply because I have a lot of free time on my hands! As for Blutbad, as I said before, it had some releases that were lazily done using that "copy and pasting" method I mentioned earlier, so if I really wanted to, I could release 20 tapes in one afternoon. For KIRA however, I spend hours at a time in my basement recording tracks. I have a decent-sized archive of recordings in my computer I plan to release very soon, either as one big tape or several smaller tapes to be released gradually over time.

DMD: In BB and KIRA there are quite a few WW1 and WW2 references, care to elaborate on that? 

K: I’m a huge war history buff. I'm in college to study some history. Initially, I wanted my themes to be real dark (as for most noise artists), so I took what I figured were the most disturbing and controversial photos from those war eras and used them as artwork, as well as having some songs reference things like the Vietnam War, WWII, etc.

DMD: Any plans to release some physical copies of KIRA’s music? 

K: Physical CDs for Modernism Tragedy are in the works, as well as CDs for the recent KIRA/Koobaatoo Asparagus split "In the Heat of the Night". As for actual tapes, I'm not sure when (or if at all) I'm gonna make some, mainly because I don't know how to dub tapes. I do plan on making physical tapes in the future, after I've made the Modernism Tragedy and ITHOTN CDs!

DMD: Who does the art/photos for KIRA?

K: When KIRA first got started, I would literally go to Google images for the album art (I obviously didn't draw the artwork for "This Man"). I would actually type in the search bar "abandoned hospital", "scary forest at night", "dark trees", etc. I'd then edit the hell out of them. That was just for the first six or seven releases. Nowadays, I take the photos myself on my phone and edit them a bit! The Modernism Tragedy album art was the hardest to make, as I used a method called "sound wave art". Looking back now, I feel kind of horrible for blatantly taking pictures from Google images.

DMD: Modernism Tragedy is a bit more experimental compared to the last few releases, did this approach come out naturally or was it more of a conscious decision? 

K: The idea for Modernism Tragedy was to take a different approach with noise. Around this time, I started listening to Prurient, now one of my biggest influences. His albums mix elements of noise, harsh noise, industrial, ambient, etc. I wanted to do something similar to that, however, I didn't want to stray too far away from what KIRA was in the beginning, harsh noise wall. At the same time, I seriously didn't want this album to be 10-15 tracks of 20+ minute walls. Because Modernism Tragedy was my first true full-length record, I wanted to leave a lasting impression on the listeners. The tracks on the album range from industrial, to power electronics, to harsh noise, and of course HNW. I wanted to limit the number of ridiculously long walls, so thats why "Death Aesthetic" clocking in at 15:07 is the only track on the record longer than 10 minutes. I had a lot of fun making this record, and while it was relentlessly difficult and stressful, I'm incredibly proud of it, and will most likely do another similar album in the future. 

DMD: Tell me about the split with Verrukt and do you plan on any more in the future? 

K: Verrukt is my good friend Mikey from Delaware, and that split was his debut! We've been close friends for a while, and always talked about wanting to do a future split. After months of talking about it, we finally made it happen, and it got a lot of attention from friends of ours and noise enthusiasts! Believe it or not, for a short amount of time, his track on the split had MORE plays than any other track on my entire Bandcamp page! We definitely plan to do more in the future! I also have a split with See Through Buildings in the works, as well as a few others!

DMD: Any plans to play live?

K: I'm not entirely sure if I want to start doing live shows... yet. I had one scheduled in Mantua, NJ for late May, but due to circumstances out of my control, that show has been canceled. I think eventually I'll start playing shows. I just need to get my act together…..

In MT, At times you’ll feel like you’re being laser-gunned to death by an unseen alien firing squad, (‘A face, a Name a Voice so Synonymous’) or sucked into a white noise whirlpool (‘Nasal shift’). 

I really have to commend Vincent on his approach to the drums and samples on this release, which on tracks such as ‘Stigma Multiplex’ and ‘Frozen’ made me recall ‘Merciless’ era Godflesh taken to more brutal extremes.  But It is when the foot is taken off the accelerator that the innovation truly shines out: Track 10 ‘Poltergeist’ is one such example of a sunken bass line married with ricocheting echoed samples to make absorbing percussive textures. 

The Harsh Noise Walls of KIRA (and formerly Blutbad) architecture are still standing proud and screaming on tracks such as ‘Narrative Homicide’ ‘Biological Chemical Nuclear Threat’ and ‘Death Aesthetic’.

My favourite track of the full length has to be ‘Frozen’. Which, if set to the 2013 Disney Children’s Classic would definitely make for a more interesting view! Ghostly synths lead the way before thundering drums pummel your mind into nothingness, savage static clouds loom ominously overhead when all is replaced with the sounds of an eerie tolling bell just one of the many tracks on Modernism Tragedy that definitely wouldn’t be out of place on a horror movie soundtrack. 

If I were to describe final track ‘Sirens and the Color of Sound’ (and I do hate to make this comparison once again) just imagine the ending atmosphere of your favourite horror/slasher movie, where you just know the director has one final scare in store before the credits roll and lights can come back on.

All in all, I can safely say ‘Modernism Tragedy’ is a stellar piece of work because: there is a fine mixture of industrial, drone, soundtrack (among many others) wrapped up in all the noise to make it more digestible for the newbies and still appeal to a more tinnitus craving listener without compromising KIRA’s sound. 

And…it’s available entirely for free download on bandcamp so there are 0 excuses. 

Noise freaks, dark ambient addicts and drone-workers everywhere….pour yourself a drink, pull up a chair and relax. 

8.5/10

KIRA bandcamp

KIRA facebook

Enjoy this interview? Check out more HNW reading below:

Interview with Ben Rehling of See Through Buildings

Interview with James Shearman of A Raja's Mesh Men

Interview with Nemanja Nikolić of Dosis Letalis