The Caretaker

After two and a half years, experimental artist Leyland Kirby has concluded his magnum opus under his Caretaker moniker.  "Everywhere at the end of time" is immense and sprawling, a statement and sonic embodiment of gradually losing your memories and yourself as dementia slowly erases your mind.  Loops and tape hiss and warped samples create a tapestry to lose yourself in and eventually disappear.  It's beautiful.  It's haunting.  It's devastating.  Listen to the ambient closer "Stage 6: Place in the world fades away" below and get the whole amazing series of albums here via History Always Favours The Winners.

The Caretaker

Beginning almost 20 years ago, Leyland Kirby's The Caretaker project was originally a sonic homage and riff on the haunted ballroom from "The Shining," bits and pieces of music from old 78RPM records cut with static and spooky ambience to make a kind of otherworldly sound.  Since then, it has evolved into an exploration of dementia and memory loss, most notably with the artist's continuing 6-part album "Everywhere at the end of time."  Stage 4 is out now, as is Kirby's description thereof:

Post-Awareness Stage 4 is where serenity and the ability to recall singular memories gives way to confusions and horror. It's the beginning of an eventual process where all memories begin to become more fluid through entanglements, repetition and rupture.

Whereas Stages 1-3 had much of its musical samples and manipulations still somewhat intact, everything now begins to fall to pieces and vanish.  It can be a hard listen, but it's also achingly and devastatingly beautiful.  Listen to "Stage 4 Post Awareness Confusions" below and download the whole project so far here from History Always Favours the Winners.

The Caretaker - Everywhere at the end of time

And speaking of Leyland Kirby, the artist just released the third volume of his "Everywhere at the end of time" project as The Caretaker, a six-volume effort of music chronicling the artist's own early onset dementia.  As should be expected, it's pretty devastating.  Listen to "And heart breaks" below and get the album(s) here.

Leyland Kirby

The incomparable experimental artist Leyland Kirby consistently puts out breathtaking and heart wrenching music through any number of his various projects.  His most recent, "We, so tired of all the darkness in our lives," released under his own name is available for free.  Stream the whole thing below and download it here from History Always Favours the Winners.

The Caretaker

Last fall, i wrote about the enormous and heart wrenching new and ongoing project from ambient artist The Caretaker, a chronicle of the artist's own early onset dementia as played out over the next couple of years titled "Everywhere at the End of Time."  The second stage of the album was just released and it's just as devastating as the first.  Listen to melancholy stage opener "A losing battle is raging" below, and buy it from the artist here, via History Always Favours The Winners.

The Caretaker

Leyland Kirby has been making fascinating, haunting, and beautiful experimental, ambient, and drone music for a number of years now, and his latest project as The Caretaker may just be his most ambitious and depressing.  It turns out that the artist has been diagnosed with early onset dementia, a subject he has explored with his music before, and he now plans to record six albums detailing the course of his disease and the deterioration of his own mind.  "Everywhere at the end of time" is part one, looping old 78's with distortion effects to create a dreamy and disheartening sound world.  This is going to be heavy.  Stream the album below and get it here.

Leyland Kirby - We drink to forget the coming storm

Experimental, ambient artist extraordinaire Leyland Kirby (The Caretaker, The Stranger) just released a 40-track album called "We drink to forget the coming storm" in celebration of his 40th birthday.  The album is a hushed and wistful piano-driven affair to soothes and breaks hearts.  Pay what you want to get the album here, though the artist recommends the price of a "birthday whiskey."  In the meantime, listen to the opening track below.