The Caretaker — Everywhere at the end of time (Stages 4-6)

The post-awareness stages of Leyland Kirby's two-year project, Everywhere at the end of time, offer a scarier and more bewildering experience than their predecessors. The final moments of stage three hinted at what was to come, but first-time listeners will still find the transition to four a surprise.

The basic premise is still the same; sounds sampled from dancehall 78s, twisted and morphed to replicate the degenerative effects of Alzheimer's. But as the disease has taken hold, our anchor has slipped from the seabed. Melodies are much harder to grasp. When they do show up, it's to provide sad contrast to the chaos around them. Tracks now occupy whole sides and are named according to corresponding symptoms, shedding the mysterious poetry of earlier stages.

Stage four opens with an explosion of panic. Its first two tracks are its most visceral, as our subject reckons with their confusion and horror. ‘H1 — Stage 4 Post Awareness Confusions’ has an almost unbearable stretch of dark, judgement-day horns. As the album proceeds, the general mood becomes more melancholic; less purely terrifying. ‘I1 Stage 4 — Temporary Bliss State’ is, as its name would suggest, a beautiful reprieve amidst the horror. And on the final side, an eerie quiet begins to descend, perhaps mimicking the calm of acceptance.

The post-awareness albums are more difficult to approach critically than those before. They provoke an immediate, personal reaction that is unique to each listener. But despite this, they maintain and even extend the project's conceptual rigour. We lunge for familiar melodies, remembrances triggered in such quick succession, and in such a random order, that a true disorientation begins to set in. These albums fill any space they occupy, scrambling thoughts and feelings. There is little to say which can feel adequate.

Stage five introduces human voices, albeit warped beyond possible understanding. These take the form both of garbled speech, and whistled melodies, produced into inhumanity. There is a specific moment on ‘K1 — Stage 5 Advanced plaque entanglements’ which has the feeling of something snapping. The last remnants of what can be recognised as a dancehall sample disappear, replaced by hissing rushes and disembodied, impossibly stretched single notes.

The general feeling is one of misfiring neurones, connections which cannot be made; stuttering thoughts, fingers brushing but unable to grip each other. The character who was built up so effectively in early stages is now all but eroded away — and each second that passes erases more. Stage five has something of three in it; both albums possess a real sense of progression (or regression), from a starting point of fullness to one of comparative emptiness. By the time five draws to a close, there is barely a whisper to be heard.

The project's final stage is one rung above surface noise; the slowing rattles of an empty body, grave inertia towards oblivion. A minimal piece of work with commanding presence, full of hair-raising negative space. It also has a sort of hopeless humanity, depicting the agony of its situation without luxuriating. But almost all talk about this final stage will centre on its shocking, and deeply human, conclusion as we follow the project to its death.

The end of this project gets uncomfortably close to mourning. The same emotional triggers are toyed with as when experiencing a real loss. Rarely does such an empathetic, imaginative and original work arrive as this. Kirby has absolutely dominated the last two years of music, with each stage of this project complementing, recontextualising and enriching those that came before it. This work must be heard to be believed.

Everywhere at the end of time can, and should, be streamed and purchased here. Physical editions available via Boomkat.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe

The Caretaker — Everywhere at the end of time (Stages 1-3)

Everywhere at the end of time has been ongoing for three years. Six albums, describing the six stages of Alzheimer's. The man behind these albums, Leyland Kirby, broke through with 2011's An Empty Bliss Beyond This World. Everywhere... sees Kirby kill off this project with some of the most harrowing and beautifully conceptualised music of the decade.

In An Empty Bliss... we see the world through the eyes of a ghost. Wobbly old 78s stretch and twist. The Caretaker drifts through abandoned ballrooms, sailing the dust of those long dead. Everything is foggy and inscrutable.

With the first stage of Everywhere at the end of time, Kirby gives The Caretaker corporeality; concreteness. Their voice, those profaned dance hall records, attains new saliency. The question of 'who is this person?' both arrives and is settled in one swoop. The record is functional (almost impossibly so in hindsight), but rich and warm at the same time. Themes roar in to being; themes which will soon become an anchor. Stage one displays almost full cogency, clarity and lightness. The hiss of things to come weighs nothing on our shoulders. For listeners there is some uncomfortable dramatic irony. The subject of this work seems not to know what they are in for.

Stage one's achievements are more easy to appreciate now, at the project's completion. At the time of stage one's release, there was a dissatisfied, 'is that it?' from some critical corners. But its establishment of character and memorable motifs are what grant power to every subsequent stage. This can be said to mirror the feeling of remorse felt towards suffers of neurodegenerative conditions. ‘I didn't tell them I loved them enough when they were still able to hear it.’

On stage two, things take a more overtly upsetting turn. Some themes from stage one return, crumbling under their own weight. Tracks are less frequently repetitive, and can lurch into unexpected, frightening new areas with no warning. The titles of tracks become jumbled, jabbering and fearful. This is possibly the most difficult of all stages to endure. The realisation lands that there is a very serious problem. Despair sets in, and the decay and disruption of memory becomes impossible to ignore.

But here, too, the beauty of Kirby's work comes to the fore. Sample choices are elegant, the samples themselves manipulated with deftness and sensitivity. A bittersweet tone deepens the character established in stage one. Both stage two and its successor appear to tell clear stories. Two emphasises the emotional toll of realising one's doomed situation. Three documents the dismantling of a soul.

Three can be summarised as a profound degradation. Chaos and despair obliterate melody and form until we close on a weak, plaintive sigh. Themes again return, here with a hideous, taunting frequency. The trap of returning again and again to a memory, all too aware that your presence is what crumbles the brickwork, does the windows in and lets mould nest fissures through the floorboards. The glory of remembrance usurped by panic. ‘How many times will I be able to come back here?’

Kirby's ability to wring surprises from a story with such an unwavering downward trajectory is impressive. But at every turn, these stages pull the rug out from under listeners. Kirby seems able to ceaselessly find new ways to distress or provoke sympathy from a listener. And perhaps the most stunning surprise comes at the transition from this project's third phase into its forth. The second half of this project is a different beast entirely to the first. Stages four, five and six comprise 'post-awareness'. These stages, The Caretaker's final bow, will be reviewed in a week's time.

Everywhere at the end of time is available for streaming and purchase here. Physical editions available through Boomkat.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe