History Music / TheCaretaker

[[redirect:Music/LeylandKirby]

[[redirect:Music/LeylandKirby]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/leyland.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Photograph of Leyland James Kirby is without description.]]

->''"The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.”''
-->-- '''Creator/FriedrichNietzsche'''

The Caretaker was a musical project exploring memory and dementia created by English musician Leyland James Kirby (born May 9, 1974). While Kirby also has an [[ArchiveBinge extensive back catalogue]] [[OlderThanTheyThink dating back to the late 1990s]] of recordings [[IHaveManyNames under almost a dozen stage names as well as his own name]], this is without a doubt his most popular project. [[LongRunner The project ran for 20 years]], beginning in [[TheNineties 1999]], first gaining widespread online attention in [[TheNewTens the early 2010s]], and concluding at the tail end of that decade with the release of the final installment of the album series ''Everywhere at the End of Time''.

In its infancy, the project dealt primarily with ideas of ghosts and memory as inspired by ''Film/TheShining'' (what with its name being a direct ShoutOut), solidifying a trademark sound of [[{{Sampling}} sampled]] ballroom jazz recordings from [[TheRoaringTwenties the 1920s]] and [[TheThirties '30s]] being altered to create dreary, atmospheric {{ambient}} music. The [[BreakthroughHit breakthrough acclaim]] of 2011's LighterAndSofter ''An Empty Bliss Beyond This World'' brought unprecedented levels of attention to the project, which also led to [[GrowingTheBeard the initiation of a new era of sorts]], as Kirby initially had no plans to continue the project beyond that album, and had a new audience with which he could expand upon the themes he wanted to cover.

Kirby then became more interested in musically exploring dementia and how it impacts people. This approach culminated with a 6.5-hour multi-album series called ''Everywhere at the End of Time'', released between 2016 and 2019, in which Kirby "gave the project dementia" and sonically represented the stages of the disease from onset to death.

After this series, Kirby announced that the project would no longer be active, with the Caretaker character symbolically dying with the completion of the album series. However, he still released one more album before calling it quits (at least as far as his Caretaker persona is concerned).
----
!!Discography:
* ''Selected Memories From the Haunted Ballroom'' (1999)
* ''A Stairway to the Stars'' (2001)
* ''We'll All Go Riding on a Rainbow'' (2003)
* ''Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia'' (2005)
* ''Additional Amnesiac Memories'' (2006)
* ''Deleted Scenes / Forgotten Dreams'' (2007)
* ''Recollected Memories From the Museum of Garden History'' (2008)
* ''Persistent Repetition of Phrases'' (2008)
* ''An Empty Bliss Beyond This World'' (2011)
* ''Patience (After Sebald)'' (film score; 2012)
* ''Everywhere at the End of Time - Stage 1'' (2016)
* ''Everywhere at the End of Time - Stage 2'' (2017)
* ''Everywhere at the End of Time - Stage 3'' (2017)
* ''Take Care. It's a Desert Out There...'' (2017)
* ''Everywhere at the End of Time - Stage 4'' (2018)
* ''Everywhere at the End of Time - Stage 5'' (2018)
* ''Everywhere, an Empty Bliss'' (2019)
* ''Everywhere at the End of Time - Stage 6'' (2019)
----
!!All you are going to want to do is get back to those tropes:
* AlternateAlbumCover:
** The vinyl releases of Stages 4-6 of ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' are split into two discs per album due to the space limitations of the LP format. As a result, they feature entirely new artwork in their inner covers, with Ivan Seal creating a unique painting for each disc in the sets.
** The CD releases comprising sets of Stages 1-3 and Stages 4-6 feature none of the main artworks for the albums, instead featuring one new painting for the one-disc set of Stages 1-3, and one per disc for the 4-disc set of Stages 4-6 (which is divided up that way due to space limitations on the UsefulNotes/CompactDisc format).
* AnimalMotif: V/Vm's was pigs, to which the project often compared humanity. He even performed under the name in a pig's mask.
* ArcWords: "Empty", "beyond", "bliss", "defeat", "Libet's delay" and "Heartaches" frequently recur in the titles of the tracks in ''An Empty Bliss Beyond this World'' and ''Everywhere at the End of Time''.
* BookEnds: The last Caretaker project ends with the same sample that winds down the first one; see MythologyGag below.
* ChronologicalAlbumTitle: Every album in the ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' series (bar the first) has a subtitle listing its position in the series; Stages 1 through 6.
* ConceptAlbum: Many albums revolve around the effects that dementia has on the brain. ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' is a ''series'' of these kinds of albums.
* CreepyJazzMusic: Basically what most of the used samples (except in non-coherent tracks like those of Stages 4-6 of ''Everywhere'') turn into after being edited.
* DarkerAndEdgier: Although the project was quite dark and horror-inspired when it started, it became much bleaker after Kirby decided to incorporate ideas about amnesia and dementia, culminating with the literal aural equivalent of losing one's mind.
* {{Deconstruction}}: Throughout the Caretaker project Leyland Kirby shows us how nostalgia can be corrupted through the loss of memory. ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' can be seen as the culmination of this idea.
** The era in which Kirby focused more on looped samples coincides with the rise of {{Vaporwave}} as a genre, especially with the 2011 release of ''An Empty Bliss Beyond this World''. While vaporwave is already a DeconstructiveParody of 80s nostalgia, the Caretaker's music plays the dementia and faded recollections of TheRoaringTwenties and TheThirties completely straight, but to create a sense of the uncanny instead of nostalgia. The latter stages of ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' are such a radical departure from even the most experimental of "sampledelia" that it feels like the entire concept of nostalgia is being shredded from existence.
* DesignStudentsOrgasm: Ivan Seal's album art for all the Caretaker releases certainly qualifies. Especially Stage 5 of ''Everywhere'' with its ballerina on a staircase (or perhaps it's something else; [[MindScrew the painting is very ambiguous]]).
* DoomedProtagonist: ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' has this trope in audio-simulation form, putting you in the shoes of someone who's going through all the phases of dementia, from the beginnings of memory loss through confusion, panic, and the inevitable ending of death.
* DroneOfDread: Many of his albums feature tracks with extremely repetitive samples that just [[BrokenRecord loop forever]] and become increasingly distorted.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The Caretaker began as a spin-off of Kirby's earlier project [=V/Vm=], and as a result the first few albums sound like a less destructive version of [=V/Vm=]. ''Selected Memories from the Haunted Ballroom'' even features a couple tracks of straight-up noise music.
* EpicRocking: It may stretch the definition of "rocking", but every track on ''Deleted Scenes / Forgotten Dreams'' and Stages 4-6 of ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' is over 20 minutes long. There's also the single track of ''Take Care. It's a Desert Out There...'', which reaches a length of 48 minutes.
* ForegoneConclusion: The entirety of ''Everywhere''[='=]s representation of dementia is built to progressively lead up to death in its finale, and the feeling of dread over what's to come permeates every track. [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools Doesn't make it any less disturbing or saddening to listen to.]]
* FourIsDeath: The "Post-Awareness" begins with Stage 4 of ''Everywhere'', as the HellIsThatNoise factor kicks in.
** In a lesser known extent, Stages 4-6 (as well as ''Deleted Scenes / Forgotten Dreams'', which established an early version of the stages' format) have a total of four tracks each, while the project ends with Stage 6's fourth track, "Place in the World fades away".
** The cover arts of Stages 2 and 6 also show four flowers and four pieces of painter's tape, respectively.
* GrandFinale: Invoked; Kirby consciously built ''Everywhere'' as the ultimate sendoff for the Caretaker character and project, and with its six-hour runtime, compilation of varying soundscapes, and thematic overtones of death, it is fittingly ''very'' grand and ''very'' final.
** On a smaller level, many see Stage 6 or its last track as giving off a similar effect, what with it being the last official Caretaker release.
* HellIsThatNoise:
** The depiction of dementia progression in Stages 4-6 of ''Everywhere'' is essentially nothing but this for several hours, although in different styles.
*** Stage 4 is a chaotic collage of recordings stretched into glitchy, dark, noisy ambience, at one point devolving into a howling foghorn and wailing sirens.
*** Stage 5 expands on the dark ambient/noise angle with much more surreal passages.
*** Stage 6 is seemingly less of an example than the stages prior with its deep, static ambient putting more emphasis on extreme melancholy over debilitating chaos, but [[NothingIsScarier its sound essentially being emptier than nothingness itself]] and just how unrecognizable everything has become since the very start brings it right back up.
** The last two tracks of ''Deleted Scenes / Forgotten Dreams'', which was an early version of the stages' formats, are a downplayed example as well, since the segments constantly switch between every 30 seconds at minimum.
* {{Leitmotif}}:
** Al Bowlly's performance of "Heartaches" is one for the entire ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' project. It is the sample behind the very first track of Stage 1, "It's just a burning memory", and makes several more appearances throughout the rest of the stages, more distorted each time, and sometimes using a sample of a different cover of the same song as well, with the more somber versions by Seger Ellis and Guy Lombardo being used at several points instead.
** "Goodnight, My Beautiful"/"Libet's delay" becomes one starting with Stage 3, being featured several times in one form or another from then on.
** "Friends Past Re-United", a sample of ''St Luke Passion,'' BWV 246, is one for the entire project, appearing several times over its 20-year span, before its final appearance as the project's last memory before "death".
** Mantovani's "Granada" is similar to "Friends Past Re-United" in that it appears over the entire project, appearing first in ''Theoretically pure anterograde amnesia'', reappearing as the Hell Sirens of Stage 4, and reappearing again occasionally in Stages 5 and 6.
* LighterAndSofter:
** ''An Empty Bliss Beyond This World'' is this compared to the other Caretaker releases, as it eases off on the harsh drones and effects and focuses a lot more on the samples.
** Stage 1 of ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' is also a relatively lighter listen due to it being early on in the dementia process.
** ''Take care. It's a desert out there...'' is arguably this as well, as it focuses on a more natural, drone-resemblant ambient style rather than distorted ambience.
* MindScrew: The album covers with Ivan Seal's paintings.
* MinimalisticCoverArt:
** All stages of ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' have very little going on in their cover art, consisting of a single object sitting in a featureless room with zero text.
** Many other albums, such as ''An Empty Bliss Beyond this World'' and ''Persistent Repetition of Phrases'', also have cover arts that fit this trope.
* MoodWhiplash: ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' has several of these PlayedForDrama.
** In general, every time a track [[NoEnding abruptly ends]] and is replaced with another one.
** The last track of ''Stage 3'', "Mournful Camaraderie", consists of a relatively mellow-sounding drone over snippets of "Heartaches". The first track of ''Stage 4'', "Post-Awareness Confusions", turns the droning into something from a horror movie soundtrack, and the samples become far more chaotic.
** ''Stage 4'''s first half-hour is entirely filled with glitchy fragments of melody from the first three stages being played back, but at around 14 minutes into the second track, the glitching cuts out and is replaced with a [[HellIsThatNoise howling foghorn and wailing sirens]].
** 4 minutes into ''Stage 5'', the intense noise cuts out and is replaced with a short sample of a dance band similar to the ones on the first three stages. Within 30 seconds, it's gone and replaced with more horrifying sounds.
** 19 minutes into ''Stage 5'', the noise once again cuts out and turns into a distant-sounding echoing voice and mandolin sample. It would be a moment of calm if it didn't sound so alien.
** The end of ''Stage 6'' and the series as a whole. For the past 4 hours, you've been listening to nothing but samples being turned into some of the most terrifying noises imaginable. By ''Stage 6'', you can't recognize anything that even remotely resembles music, but in the last track, you hear what sounds like an organ ominously crescendoing, until you can't take it anymore and then... silence. A needle drops on a record. And the sound that comes out will bring even the most hardened listeners to tears as they hear what sounds like a choir of angels mourning the dead.
* MythologyGag:
** A performance of the traditional pop standard "Heartaches" by Al Bowlly is prominently featured throughout ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' as a leitmotif for the album's exploration of dementia; Bowlly's rendition of "Midnight, the Stars, and You" was previously used in ''Film/TheShining'', the movie that inspired the Caretaker project in the first place.
** The distorted choir sample that ends ''Everywhere'' is actually sourced from "Friends Past Reunited," which was one of the last tracks of ''Selected Memories from the Haunted Ballroom'', and reprised in ''A Stairway to the Stars''.
* NewSoundAlbum: Several throughout the project's history.
** ''Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia'' was the first album to explicitly deal in themes of mental decline, and sounded completely different from what led up to it. The album featured lengthy [[DroneOfDread drones of dread]], with what few identifiable samples there were often buried under constant noise.
** ''Persistent Repetition Of Phrases'' is a more conventional case of this, marking the project's transition from reverb-heavy plunderphonics reminiscent of [=V/Vm=] to loop-based compositions exploring flaws within the records themselves.
** ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' changes sound between Stages 3 and 4, with the latter returning to ''Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia's'' lengthy pieces full of HellIsThatNoise. The latter two stages are even more extreme drone albums, with fewer recognizable samples and more harsh noise. Stage 6 is almost entirely static noise.
* NoEnding: If ''Everywhere'' tracks don't end with their reverb tail fading into the distance, they can often cut off without warning, amounting to the instant cessation of a memory.
* NothingIsScarier:
** After the super-dense, extremely noisy Stages 4 and 5, Stage 6 of ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' is largely dense walls of static noise, like the sonic embodiment of an empty mind.
*** Kirby wrote summaries that accompanied each stage. For Stages 1-5, they described the mental degradation each stage was made to represent in excruciating detail with increasingly disturbing imagery. The summary for the last stage? "Post-Awareness Stage 6 is without description."
** Meta example: as areas like [=RateYourMusic=] comment boxes have proven records of, being a Caretaker fan during the ''Everywhere'' rollout meant that you had absolutely no idea what sound the next stage would capture as the dementia progressed. As the project devolved into harsher territories, many feared Stage 6 being, among other things, nothing but a wall of harsh noise. Do take note that there were 5-7 months in between stages to let all those fears ruminate...
* OminousMusicBoxTune: "Bewildered in Other Eyes" from Stage 3 of ''Everywhere at the End of Time''.
* ProductionThrowback: Stage 3 of ''EATEOT'' has numerous references to ''An Empty Bliss Beyond this World'', found in both the track titles, the "Goodnight, My Beautiful" {{leitmotif}} of "Libet's delay", and even a rendition of the album's title track, sampling an orchestrated version of "The Wedding of the Painted Doll".
** From Stage 4 onwards, ''EATEOT'' contains glitched snippets of tracks from even pre-''Empty Bliss'' albums, such as ''A stairway to the stars'', ''We'll all go riding on a rainbow'', and ''Selected Memories from the Haunted Ballroom''.
* PsychologicalHorror: In the case of ''EATEOT'', it doesn't get much more psychological than an audio depiction of the process of literally losing one's mind.
* RepetitiveAudioGlitch: Every track features samples being looped ad nauseum, often until it's almost unbearable, after which the audio [[NoEnding cuts out.]] Definitely creepy...
* {{Sampling}}: Every track in the Caretaker's catalogue contains samples from various artists in the first half of the 20th century. The most frequently sampled artists include Al Bowlly, Russ Morgan, Layton & Johnstone, Paul Whiteman, Maurice Winnick, Chester Gaylord, and Charlie Spivak. Dedicated Caretaker fans have looked far and wide for every sample used and so far have pieced together the entire first half of ''Everywhere at the End of Time'', as well as most of the second half.
* SanitySlippageSong: ''All of it.''
* SensoryAbuse: The second half of ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' consists of jumbled-up fragments of music played against a backdrop of pure noise. By the final stage, the samples are practically inaudible over the intense drones.
* SilenceIsGolden: ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' ends with a minute of complete silence. Given the themes of the album, it's absolutely haunting.
* SpiritualAntithesis: The Caretaker is this to V/Vm. Kirby has noted that both projects are themed conceptually around memory and its relationship with music, but whereas V/vm was essentially a {{Troll}} project that ruthlessly mangled and distorted songs from the 1980s and 1990s, The Caretaker's samples and edits of ballroom music treats the subject matter with a great deal more respect.
* SurprisinglyGentleSong:
** Stage 4 of ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' has "Temporary Bliss State". After over 40 minutes of [[HellIsThatNoise a terrifying noisescape of distorted samples]], there's a track that sounds downright blissful by comparison, even if it is still quite sad.
** The end of Stage 6 of ''Everywhere at the End of Time,'' in which all the noise cuts out and is replaced by a funeral choir singing solemnly, followed by one minute of silence representing the Caretaker's "death".
*** The main theories are that it's a form of terminal lucidity, a moment in which the patient suddenly regains their memory in the final days or moments before their death, or the Caretaker's funeral.
* SurrealHorror: So much of The Caretaker's work leans heavily into this, with compositions that just don't make much sense, and are all the more horrific for it.
* TextlessAlbumCover: Barring a few, almost every album by The Caretaker lacks any kind of text on the cover, in favor of minimalist designs as described above.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: From 'Pig', one of Kirby's projects under the V/Vm title, the liner notes are both grandly misanthropic and [[SophisticatedAsHell extremely elegant]] in how they get their message across in likening the uncouth behaviour of humans as being similar to the titular pigs:
-->As the connection between HUMAN and PIG blurs into one hideous being -- vvmPIG provides the still creative amongst us with a tool against this ever emerging mass. The difference between most clubs, pubs, bars and PIG sties is slight with this 'emerging creature' finding itself surrounded on the dancefloors with creatures of similar intelligence, engaging in HOG like behaviour of grand proportion.
-->This behaviour is not only confined to the areas listed above. A quick walk down the street is usually interrupted by one of these hideous creatures wriggling its snout or chasing its tail. This emerging hog like mass has no purpose other than to be manipulated and taken advantage of.
-->vvmPIG reaches out to this MASS of people in a language they can fully understand and easily comprehend. Upon exposure to vvmPIG members of the mass have spontaneously began to search for scraps, grunt vociferously, fight and bully each other, and on occasion certain crossbreeds and inbreds have been seen consuming their own and others faeces.
-->Please use this record as a tool enabling you to offend the MASS. For maximum effect the following announcement should be made to those about to be exposed.
-->'''"[[TakeThatAudience YOU ARE ALL PIGS. SO HERE IS SOMETHING YOU WILL ALL UNDERSTAND.]]"'''
-->V/Vm wholeheartedly encourage the playing of this record and the consequences which may arise if you do so.
* WaxingLyrical: "It's just a burning memory" and "What does it matter how my heart breaks", both ''EATEOT'' renditions of "Heartaches", derive their titles from lyrics in the song.
* WordSaladTitle: The names of the tracks on ''EATEOT'' Stage 3 are a mishmash of song names from the first two stages and ''An Empty Bliss'', representing the Caretaker's memories becoming more confused and scrambled.
----
->''May the ballroom remain eternal.\\
C'est fini.''
----

[[caption-width-right:350:Photograph of James Leyland Kirby is without description.]]

The Caretaker was a musical project exploring memory and dementia created by English musician James Leyland Kirby (born May 9, 1974). While Kirby also has an [[ArchiveBinge extensive back catalogue]] [[OlderThanTheyThink dating back to the late 1990s]] of recordings [[IHaveManyNames under almost a dozen stage names as well as his own name]], this is without a doubt his most popular project. [[LongRunner The project ran for 20 years]], beginning in [[TheNineties 1999]], first gaining widespread online attention in [[TheNewTens the early 2010s]], and concluding at the tail end of that decade with the release of the final installment of the album series ''Everywhere at the End of Time''.

** The vinyl releases of Stages 4-6 of ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' are split into two discs per album, respectively, due to the space limitations of the vinyl disc format. As a result, they feature entirely new artwork in their inner covers, with Ivan Seal creating a unique painting for each disc in the sets.
** The CD releases comprising sets of Stages 1-3 and Stages 4-6, on the other hand, feature none of the main artworks for the albums, instead featuring one new painting for the one-disc set of Stages 1-3, and one per disc for the 4-disc set of Stages 4-6 (which is, once again, a consequence of limitations for the UsefulNotes/CompactDisc format).

** The vinyl releases of stages 4-6 of ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' are split into two discs per album, respectively, due to the space limitations of the vinyl disc format. As a result, they feature entirely new artwork in their inner covers, with Ivan Seal creating a unique painting for each disc in the sets.
** The CD releases comprising sets of stages 1-3 and stages 4-6, on the other hand, feature none of the main artworks for the albums, instead featuring one new painting for the one-disc set of stages 1-3, and one per disc for the 4-disc set of stages 4-6 (which is, once again, a consequence of limitations for the UsefulNotes/CompactDisc format).

* AlternateAlbumCover: The vinyl and [[UsefulNotes/CompactDisc CD]] releases of stages 4-6 of ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' are split into two discs per album and four discs for all albums as a whole set, respectively, due to the space limitations of the formats. As a result, they feature entirely new artwork in their inner covers, with Ivan Seal creating a unique painting for each disc in the sets.

* AlternateAlbumCover: The CD release of stages 4-6 of ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' splits the album into four discs due to the space limitations of the UsefulNotes/CompactDisc format. As a result, the set features entirely new artwork, with Ivan Seal creating a unique painting for each disc in the set.

& AnimalMotif: V/Vm's was pigs, to which the project often compared humanity. He even performed under the name in a pig's mask.

** Mantovani's "Granada" is similar to Friends Past Re-United in that it appears over the entire project, appearing first in ''Theoretically pure anterograde amnesia'' and reappearing as the Hell Sirens of ''Everywhere at the End of Time - Stage 4'', reappearing again occasionally in Stages 5 and 6.

** Stage 1 of ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' is lighter still, due to it being early on in the dementia process.
** ''Take care. It's a desert out there...'' is arguably this as well, as it focuses on a more natural ambient style rather than distorted ambience.

* WordSaladTitle: The names of the tracks on ''EATEOT'' Stage 3 are a mishmash of of song names from the first two stages and ''An Empty Bliss'', representing the Caretaker's memories becoming more confused and scrambled.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The Caretaker began as a spinoff of his 1996 project [=V/Vm=], and as a result the first few albums sound like a less destructive version of that project. ''Selected Memories from the Haunted Ballroom'' even features a couple tracks of straight-up noise music.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The Caretaker began as a spinoff of his 1996 project [=V/Vm=], and as a result the first three albums sound like a less destructive version of that project. ''Selected Memories from the Haunted Ballroom'' even features a couple tracks of straight-up noise music.

** ''Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia'' was completely different from any previous projects, featuring lengthy [[DroneOfDread drones of dread]] instead of short sampled pieces, although later projects returned to the ballroom jazz samples.

* {{Sampling}}: Every track in the Caretaker's catalogue contains samples from various artists in the first half of the 20th century. The most frequently sampled artists include Al Bowlly, Russ Morgan, Layton & Johnstone, Paul Whiteman, Maurice Winnick, Chester Gaylord, and Charlie Spivak. Dedicated Caretaker fans have looked far and wide for every sample used and so far have pieced together most of the first half of ''Everywhere at the End of Time''.