Indignant Senility - Plays Wagner Part 1

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4...according to our Brett on Thu 11 Feb, 2010.

Some fine History Always Favours the Winners-esque sounds here on Type with a game lad by the name of Pat Maherr conjuring similar moods of decay not from old ballroom records but from the works of Richard Wagner. Although the method most obviously recalls Leyland Kirby's Caretaker stuff the actual sound is more reminiscent of that monster set under his own name with a slightly noisy, almost industrial ambience evoking a feel of a proud nation going into decline - something which was obviously on the horizon in the pre-Weimar period in which the music was originally composed. Clearly that's me looking at history with the benefit of 100-plus years of hindsight but the reconstextualisation of the romantic bombast Wagner is often equated with can be pretty moving at times. Indignant Senility is a pretty sketchy name though.

* ULTRA LIMITED, LESS THAN 100 COPIES FOR UK.

* PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS PART ONE OF A TWO PART SET (PART TWO WILL BE RELEASED IN MARCH2010). A CD EDITION COMPILING BOTH VOLUMES WILL BE RELEASED IN APRIL 2010

* Under a plethora of names Pat Maherr has hand-crafted some of the most beguiling sounds we've heard in the last few years, chopped and screwed hip hop as DJ Yo-Yo Dieting, lo-fi noise as Sisprum Vish, sample-heavy musique concrete as Moms Who Chop and cask-strength industrial ambience under the Indignant Senility moniker.

* 'Plays Wagner' appeared as a very limited cassette on Maherr's own label last year, but as soon as it landed at the Type offices we knew it needed to reach more ears. Using a handful of dusty Wagner pieces (no doubt scored from one of Portland, Oregon's many thrift stores), he has stretched and distorted the hallowed tones into something indescribably dark and beautiful.

* Like David Lynch's peerless Eraserhead soundtrack before it, this is music that sounds as if you are being dragged through rusted pipes and hearing the distant swell of broken gramophones playing in unison. Maherr has created music that is at all times exquisite but deeply disturbing. Like Leyland Kirby or even William Basinski, there is a sense of harmony, nostalgia and restraint in the layers of hiss, grit and noise.

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