01 July 2024

Back to the Drawing Board

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

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.
 

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...

6 comments:

  1. Selected Memories
    E4F6tmop55sXkRDAJU6PdSSAf6nDqXpC231_74wrxPw
    Empty Bliss
    n0Nx_uQZCgIwVbCFIcWte6f_1odBzNSGsbNqpnz2YgA
    Theoretically Pure
    _AVeW6z7EQ3r4gD52m8Hh8cn_NI2LnoG26aoUae01m8

    ReplyDelete
  2. As a consolation, this is still great. Everyone needs some Caretaker in their library.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Couldn'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.

      Delete
  3. Richie Muster7/2/24, 4:59 AM

    This 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.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Same 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.

      Delete
  4. Sounds very interesting -- thanks N0!

    ReplyDelete