This is not what I had planned for the next two months.
But this is what I do,
so...
While I was working through some damaged sounds in my P folder of Musick that Needs Work, I shared Pye Corner Audio. This touched off a brief dialogue that began with this comment.
MarkyD sez:
"Thanks NØ. I desperately want to like Pye but couldn't really enjoy Hollow Earth or Let's Emerge. I suppose I want my hauntology to be more James Kirby. I will listen to these with more humility."
Leyland James Kirby is a cult-favorite English musician otherwise known as The Caretaker. The Caretaker references Jack Torrance, Jack Nicholson's slowly unraveling hotel groundskeeper in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. The Caretaker debuted with 1999s Selected Memories From The Haunted Ballroom, glitchy waltzes that echo through your most haunted empty ballroom.
V/Vm Test Records OFFAL02, 1999.
all decryption codes in comments
all decryption codes in comments
Engagements -
The Haunted Ballroom
By the Seaside
One Thousand Memories
Haunting Me
A Summer Romance
Den of Iniquity
Dream Waltz
A Handful of Stars
Request Dance
In the Dark
Reckless Night
Interval -
Thronged with Ghosts
From Out of Nowhere
Friends Past Reunited
You & the Night
Moonlight Seranade
Disillusioned
The Revolving Bandstand
Garden of Weeds
"Excuse Me" for Ladies
In Days of Old
September 1939
Thanks
The Haunted Ballroom
Untitled
The Caretaker is most known for his breakthrough 2011 release An Empty Bliss Beyond This World. Arranged from edits of Jazz Age ballroom tunes found on forgotten 78s in dollar bins worldwide. Kirby re-worked the dusty samples to crackle, loop, & fade indiscriminately, repeating themselves or abruptly changing course. The record is as dreamy as it is unsettling, trapping the listener into the locked groove of someone else's distant memories.
The Caretaker - An Empty Bliss Beyond This World, History Always Favours The Winners, 2011.
All You are Going to Want to Do is Get Back There
Moments of Sufficient Lucidity
The Great Hidden Sea of the Unconscious
Libet's Delay
I Feel as if I Might Be Vanishing
An Empty Bliss Beyond This World
Bedded Deep in Long Term Memory
A Relationship with the Sublime
Mental Caverns Without Sunshine
Pared Back to the Minimal
Mental Caverns Without Sunshine
An Empty Bliss Beyond This World
Tiny Gradiations of Loss
Camaraderie at Arms Length
The Sublime is Disappointingly Elusive
Over time, the Caretaker has explored the theme of neurodegenerative illness, using his records themselves as metaphors for the progressive failure of the human mind.
Here The Caretaker provides you with a 72 track release offered for free via downloadable MP3s on the official V/Vm website, seventy-two memories in which to lose yourself. It is the aural sound of "Theoretically pure anterograde amnesia", a condition where it's impossible to remember new events. This is a release of audio designed to be forgotten with few reference points appearing from a dense audio fog of an amnesiac condition.
Here The Caretaker provides you with a 72 track release offered for free via downloadable MP3s on the official V/Vm website, seventy-two memories in which to lose yourself. It is the aural sound of "Theoretically pure anterograde amnesia", a condition where it's impossible to remember new events. This is a release of audio designed to be forgotten with few reference points appearing from a dense audio fog of an amnesiac condition.
The Caretaker - Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia, V/Vm Test Records, 2005.
Memory One
Memory Two
Memory Three
Memory Four
Memory Five
Memory Six
Memory Seven
Memory Eight
Memory Nine
Memory Ten
Memory Eleven
Memory Twelve
Memory Thirteen
Memory Fourteen
Memory Fifteen
Memory Sixteen
Memory Seventeen
Memory Eighteen
Memory Nineteen
Memory Twenty
Memory Twenty One
Memory Twenty Two
Memory Twenty Three
Memory Twenty Four
Memory Twenty Five
Memory Twenty Six
Memory Twenty Seven
Memory Twenty Eight
Memory Twenty Nine
Memory Thirty
Memory Thirty One
Memory Thirty Two
Memory Thirty Three
Memory Thirty Four
Memory Thirty Five
Memory Thirty Six
Memory Thirty Seven
Memory Thirty Eight
Memory Thirty Nine
Memory Forty
Memory Forty One
Memory Forty Two
Memory Forty Three
Memory Forty Four
Memory Forty Five
Memory Forty Six
Memory Forty Seven
Memory Forty Eight
Memory Forty Nine
Memory Fifty
Memory Fifty One
Memory Fifty Two
Memory Fifty Three
Memory Fifty Four
Memory Fifty Five
Memory Fifty Six
Memory Fifty Seven
Memory Fifty Eight
Memory Fifty Nine
Memory Sixty
Memory Sixty One
Memory Sixty Two
Memory Sixty Three
Memory Sixty Four
Memory Sixty Five
Memory Sixty Six
Memory Sixty Seven
Memory Sixty Eight
Memory Sixty Nine
Memory Seventy
Memory Seventy One
Memory Seventy Two
Enjoy,
NØ
This is what I had planned for the upcoming month...
Selected Memories
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Empty Bliss
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Theoretically Pure
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As a consolation, this is still great. Everyone needs some Caretaker in their library.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't agree more about The Caretaker. But I put in a months worth of work compiling all the SOtB music. I shall not be thwarted.
DeleteThis is great. I thought i had most of Leyland Kirby's output but here are two i'd missed. My introduction to him was via Vvm's noise/cut-ups, which i thought were patchy but in places superb; everything he's done as The Caretaker, & under his own name though is uniformly excellent. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteSame here. V/VM was my introduction and I loved all the madness he released under that moniker. Then came Caretaker and I was shocked that this was the same person. All that noise was gone and this was a sublime, delicate approach to the progression of memory loss exemplified through music. I remember all his works being available for free on Brainwashed, then he did the 365 project. And yes, I did submit some fan remixes for his competitions back in the day. Over all, he is quite the prolific and underrated artist.
DeleteSounds very interesting -- thanks N0!
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