If the concept of this album hasn’t already been beaten into you by a dozens of other bloggers, let me explain:
It’s a bunch of old ballroom music samples that are looped, and the ware, dust, etc. of the sampled material depicts the degradation and repetition of memory, especially as an affect of Alzheimer’s disease and/or dementia. Slather on spacious reverb to depict the darkness on the edge of memory, yadda yadda yadda and you have An empty bliss beyond this World.
Some perverse way of interacting with the past like making puppets out of corpses, as all sampling in a way is. But at its core The Caretaker- given name Leyland James Kirby- seems to hold a great reverence for time and a respect for its victims (as we all are).
While it does at times feel as if a Nurse With Wound record took itself way too seriously, The Caretaker strikes a fine line of dark conceptual music while being sonically approachable and accessible to a wider swath of people than NWW or other dark ambient works, for which Kirby should be commended.
Anyone who has seen Kubrick’s The Shining or a Jiri Barta film and thought ‘I want to go to there’ will revel in this album. Play it for them, or play it for yourself- It’s a worthwhile listen. Then you can always keep this record in the back of your mind, for when quaintness fades to black you’ll have a good record to recommend.
For fans of: Nurse With Wound, David Lynch, Arthur Fields
Like The Caretaker? Give these a listen: Music for Sleep, Lower Level Bureau, Slow Blink
The Resident Sound 