Barrena and See Through Buildings — Split

Here’s a C50 split bringing together two side-long wall noise tracks. First, there’s the searing rush, battering billow, to later thick battering walled noise of Puerto Rican's Barrena. And second, we have a dense/overwhelming- yet oddly entrancing slab of walling from Garden Grove, California’s See Through Buildings.

The green-shelled cassette with white text comes presented in an oversized pinch-lock clear baggie. This features what looks like a green-tinged photo of the side of a large corrugated iron & steel grid-structured covered building, with a black and white text inlay with credits on. The tape release comes in an edition of 100 copies, which can be purchased directly here. 

On side A, we have Barrena track, which is entitled “Lament For A Nuclear Winter”. This twenty-four-minute and twenty-three-second track opens with a mix of muffled bass drone and searing rush. As it progresses, we move into a bleak mass of cluttering billow/ pelt, underfed by white out droning bass tone- which later shifts into all out thick wall matter, built around dense rolling bass tone and taut rushing static. The steady build of the whole track is done well enough, though at times the shifts/ progresses felt somewhat awkward, but when it finally fills out, I enjoyed the crushing & pummelling mass of the track.

Flipping over to side two, and we have See Through Buildings “Windows Reflect Dust”- which comes in at just over the twenty-four minute mark. After the fairly active first side track, this is much more fixed & very full in its attack. The ‘wall’ is built around a blend of rapidly rolling rush, faint pummelling machinery like churn, and washing sear. It feels akin to being out of your depth in a huge, violently choppy sea, which has been frothed/ churned up by lines of bucking metal pistons. There is most certainly a hint of rapid industrial churn about the whole thing- but this is overwhelmed by the other textures. As the track progressed, I tried to follow the textural pattern rush & violent churn of - but everything is so overwhelmed it’s difficult to do so, and I certainly don’t mean this as a criticism- as this track wonderfully blocks out the world around you- yet still keeps you held with the subtle hints of textural patterns. In its last few minutes, the speeding rush seemingly starts to thin back, and you can start to just hear some details- but never enough to fully. It must be a good few years since I’ve heard anything new from  See Through Buildings- so it’s great to see it reappearing with such a memorable overloading wall.

So I’d say out of the two tracks here, the second one is the keeper for me, as the rapid & dense rush of the whole thing felt so compelling/ engaging. The first side track is fine, aside from the slight awkward tonal shifts- but its title fits very well.