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

William Basinski — On Time Out of Time

The myth of Disintegration Loops disguises William Basinski behind layers of sobriety. In real life, Basinski is arch, charming, even goofy. The closest thing ambient has to a rock star. But Basinski will always, to many, be 'the guy who made Disintegration Loops'. Perfectly situated in an imperfect time, it has attained a legendary status. As it dominates his public image, the artist's opus dwarfs public consciousness of the rest of his work. Even his latest, which samples gravitational waves of black holes, cannot make the same dent.

But On Time Out of Time sees Basinski as effervescent, inventive and ambitious as he was in the early 2000s. Following on from 2017's A Shadow in Time, this is the latest in a string of bursts of creativity. Its concept of 'what happens when two black holes fuck' is nowhere near as flimsy as you'd expect. Basinski pulls a genuine dialogue from drones, balancing delicacy and power, warmth and hostility. These colossal, ancient conversations seem to unspool in real time, despite having taken place over a billion years before their recording by an MIT lab.

The sounds teeter between organic and inorganic. Like so much of nature, their language must be bastardised by instruments for us to hear it. It's uncanny how much Basinski humanises these celestial samples. We are voyeurs, eavesdropping on a personal conversation.

Basinski structures the piece as an explosion which falls into slow entropy. It peaks early, and spends most of its second half fading out. Our formless players collapse back into time. Loss and distance are greatly emphasised. There is something bittersweet here — like seeing an estranged friend in an old yearbook. Unless we live to see another billion years, we will never know for sure where those black holes are now.

If these black holes fucked, it's surely one of the universe's great tragedies. Once close enough to intermingle waves but, as expansion wrenches them further apart, more distant every day.

Fans should, if they haven’t already, listen to last year’s collaboration between Kevin Shields and Brian Eno. On Time Out of Time is available for streaming and purchase here.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe

Snapped Ankles — Stunning Luxury

Snapped Ankles are one of the most theatrical bands around. Their live performances use pageantry and costume to present band members as 'woodwose'; satyr-like Medieval wildmen. But under this frippery is a pretty straightforward ska-punk group. It's difficult at times not to think of Mike Patton's Mr Bungle, a band to whom they owe a sonic debt.

Snapped Ankles' songs, though, lack the compositional ambition of Patton's. Instead they lock into a rigid, almost industrial groove, and stay there for their duration, Fall-like. This is how, with few exceptions, Stunning Luxury proceeds. 'Skirmish in the Suburbs' slows things down at the album's midpoint — but not by much. And then, as if bored with itself, it accelerates for its second half.

Stunning Luxury is a bizarre listen, caught somewhere between rote and inspired. Is it profound, or goofy? What are the band trying to say or do? The whole thing sounds totally alien, but totally familiar. Even the masks behind which band members hide are amorphous and confusing. Despite this thematic impenetrability, they’re very listenable.

Consequently, a lot of Snapped Ankles' quirks end up feeling superfluous. The smoke and mirrors of a band uncomfortable with its own conventionality. Their project's reach exceeds its grasp, and so it sits in a tense area of near-collapse, struggling under the weight of its own ambition. And this, if anything, is what will make or break Stunning Luxury for most listeners. How palatable do you find the sound of a band pushing themselves further than they know how to go?

Fans may be interested in Mr Bungle, Liars, and late work of The Fall. Stunning Luxury is available for stream and purchase here.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe

Cosey Fanni Tutti — Tutti

Last year saw the re-release of 1981's Mission of Dead Souls, a recording of what was at the time Throbbing Gristle's final performance. It's difficult to overstate Throbbing Gristle's level of influence and forward thinking. No words could convey this as well as Mission of Dead Souls itself — still sounding newer and more contemporary than most work released almost forty years later.

It's arguable that Cosey Fanni Tutti has become a victim of her own success. To casual listeners, Tutti sounds like more of the same; something which, in many artists, would indicate complacency. But it feels like Throbbing Gristle’s members left no stone unturned. It's miracle enough that their output doesn't sound worn away, haggard, derelict. 'More of the same', with these people, means more provocation; more progress.

And it's not identical. There is one obvious difference between Tutti and Cosey’s previous solo work. Time to Tell examined the psychological toll of femininity and the sex industry through spoken word. Its style has been aped many times and by many acolytes, including recently Jenny Hval on Blood Bitch. But on Tutti, this device is dropped, letting the music speak for itself.

The music speaks loudest when Cosey focuses least on rhythm. 'Sophic Ripple' is the standout on Tutti by virtue of its oddity; memorable as a mood or a soundscape. By contrast, the album's riff-driven title track is entertaining, but slightly disposable. Whatever feeling it tries to inspire barely makes it off the ground. So Tutti is a mixed bag — but that's to be expected when Cosey herself has described the album as 'not locked into any specific time or place'.

In recent years artist have been making comebacks, polishing past glories. Reminding everyone how they got so famous. But Cosey Fanni Tutti has neither the luxury or inclination to do so. She is, as ever, a titillator and a pusher of buttons. Like 2016's Blackstar, this is as much a reinvention as a retrospective. With any luck, Cosey will continue to wreck civilisation for some time to come.

Jenny Hval’s Blood Bitch has some nice homages to Cosey’s first solo album. Tutti is available for stream and purchase here.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe