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The Caretaker (musician)
The Caretaker was a long-running project by English ambient musician Leyland James Kirby (born 9 May 1974). His work as the Caretaker is characterized as exploring memory and its gradual deterioration, nostalgia, and melancholia. The project was inspired by the haunted ballroom scene in the 1980 film '' The Shining''. His first several releases comprised treated and manipulated samples of 1930s ballroom pop recordings. The Caretaker's works have received critical acclaim in publications such as ''The Wire,'' ''The New York Times'', and BBC Music. History 1999–2003: Haunted Ballroom trilogy Simon Reynolds refers to the Caretaker's first three releases as "the haunted ballroom trilogy", spanning 1999-2003: ''Selected Memories from the Haunted Ballroom'', ''A Stairway to the Stars'', ''We'll All Go Riding on a Rainbow''. Jon Fletcher described the sound as "instantly recognisable musical identity of British tea-room pop (dance-band and swing music from the 1920s, 1930s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
V/Vm
V/Vm is the experimental music and sound collage project of Leyland James Kirby, from Stockport, England. Although starting out mainly in the style of noise music, Kirby is also a composer of original electronic music and remixes. His vast output is released primarily on his own V/Vm Test Records label. Alongside the work of the V/Vm project, James Kirby also recorded as The Caretaker. He currently resides in Kraków. History Since 1996 there have been numerous releases by V/Vm on a host of labels and featuring the work of a number of musicians. Early releases were often electronic in nature, including a critically acclaimed split 12" release on Fat Cat Records. In 1999, V/Vm also released a recording of pigs feeding at a pig farm in the North West of England to the horror of many reviewers who mistook the sound of feeding pigs for that of pigs being killed. Around the time of this release, V/Vm appeared on the cover of ''The Wire'' (October 1998, issue 176). Under the banner " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Music
BBC Music is responsible for the music played across the BBC. The current director of music is Bob Shennan, who is also the controller of BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 6 Music, and the BBC Asian Network. Officially it is a part of the BBC's Radio operational division and is directly responsible to Helen Boaden (director of Radio); however, its remit also includes music used in television and online services. It was established in its current form in 2014; however, the BBC had already been using the BBC Music brand to refer to its online music content and some live events beforehand, including a now defunct record label. Launch BBC Music had its official launch at 20:00 on 7 October 2014, with a simulcast of a specially-commissioned cover of the Beach Boys' 1966 song "God Only Knows". Produced by Ethan Johns, it featured a supergroup of singers such as Chris Martin (of Coldplay), Stevie Wonder, Kylie Minogue, Dave Grohl (of Foo Fighters), Elton John, Pharrell Williams, One Dir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patience (After Sebald)
Winfried Georg Sebald (18 May 1944 – 14 December 2001), known as W. G. Sebald or (as he preferred) Max Sebald, was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was being cited by literary critics as one of the greatest living authors. Life Sebald was born in Wertach, Bavaria, second of the three children of Rosa and Georg Sebald, and his parents' only son. From 1948 to 1963, he lived in Sonthofen. His father joined the Reichswehr in 1929 and remained in the Wehrmacht under the Nazis. His father remained a detached figure, a prisoner of war until 1947: his maternal grandfather, the small-town police officer Josef Egelhofer (1872–1956), was the most important male presence during his early years. Sebald was shown images of The Holocaust while at school in Oberstdorf and recalled that no one knew how to explain what they had just seen. The Holocaust and post-war Germany are central themes in his work. Sebald studied German and English literatur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grant Gee
Grant Robert Gee (born 24 October 1964) is a British film maker, photographer and cinematographer. He is most noted for his 1998 documentary ''Meeting People Is Easy'' about the British alternative rock group Radiohead. Early life Gee was born in Plymouth, Devon and studied Geography at St Catherine's College, Oxford. He did postgraduate study at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Career In the early 1990s Gee worked on U2's Zoo TV and Zoo Radio, and collaborated with Mark Neale on several projects (many through London production company Kudos Productions), including "The Memory Palace", an experimental multi-media project combining film and live performance for the Expo '92. In 1996 he directed a twenty-seven-minute short film commissioned by progressive house band Spooky for parts of their album "Found Sound" (namely the tracks "Central Heating", "Bamboo", "Aphonia", "Lowest Common Denominator", "Hypo-Allergenic"/"Interim"). The film was displayed on a continuou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patience (After Sebald) (soundtrack)
The soundtrack for ''Patience (After Sebald)'' (2012), a film by Grant Gee, was composed and produced by English musician James Leyland Kirby under his ambient music project the Caretaker. The official soundtrack album was issued on 23 January 2012. Unlike other albums of the Caretaker that used old recordings of playful and bright ballroom music, Kirby's score for the film uses a 1927 record of Franz Schubert's piano-and-voice-only composition ''Winterreise'' (1828) as its main audio source. It also differs from other works of the project where hissing sounds are used instead of crackles, the loops are shorter in lengths, and the non-musical aspects of each track (the hiss sounds) serve as the foreground of the mix. The soundtrack was favorably received by professional music journalists. History Grant Gee asked James Kirby to soundtrack his film ''Patience (After Sebald)'' in 2009. Gee explained in an interview that when he figured out what film stock he would be using to recor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
An Empty Bliss Beyond This World
''An Empty Bliss Beyond This World'' is the ninth studio album by the Caretaker, an ambient music project of English musician Leyland Kirby, released on 1 June 2011 through History Always Favours the Winners. The record is based on a study regarding people with Alzheimer's disease being able to remember music they listened to when they were younger, as well as where they were and how they felt listening to it. The album samples pre-World War II ballroom records Kirby bought in Brooklyn in December 2010. This theme of Alzheimer's in music would be greatly expanded upon through 2016 to 2019 through Kirby's final series of albums as The Caretaker, ''Everywhere at the End of Time''. ''An Empty Bliss Beyond This World'' was the Caretaker's breakthrough album, garnering critical acclaim upon its release and earning several year-end accolades. ''Pitchfork'' has called it the 75th best album of the first half of the 2010s as well as the 14th best ambient album of all time. Concept ''A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pitchfork (website)
''Pitchfork'' (formerly ''Pitchfork Media'') is an American online music publication (currently owned by Condé Nast) that was launched in 1995 by writer Ryan Schreiber as an independent music blog. Schreiber started Pitchfork while working at a record store in suburban Minneapolis, and the website earned a reputation for its extensive coverage of indie rock music. It has since expanded and covers all kinds of music, including pop. Pitchfork was sold to Condé Nast in 2015, although Schreiber remained its editor-in-chief until he left the website in 2019. Initially based in Minneapolis, Pitchfork later moved to Chicago, and then Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Its offices are currently located in One World Trade Center alongside other Condé Nast publications. The site is best known for its daily output of music reviews but also regularly reviews reissues and box sets. Since 2016, it has published retrospective reviews of classics, and other albums that it had not previously review ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was
''Sadly, the Future Is No Longer What It Was'' is the debut studio album by English musician Leyland Kirby, released on 1 September 2009. With his ongoing aliases at the time, Kirby produced a melancholic album that explored thoughts of the future. He produced ''Sadly'' at an agitated time, when he would not work but rather drink with various girls. The record was first issued as three full-length CDs and would later be repressed as six vinyls with artwork by Ivan Seal. The release received moderately positive reception from music critics. Some criticized its length, while others praised its emotional sound. Background Leyland Kirby is an English musician known for his ambient drone releases as the Caretaker. He was very prolific with his numerous pseudonyms, saying: "There is only the work, regardless of external pressures and the day to day struggle." His releases under the Caretaker alias explored the horror film '' The Shining'' but would later portray memory loss with ''Theo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Persistent Repetition Of Phrases
''Persistent Repetition of Phrases'' is the seventh studio album by the Caretaker, an alias of musician Leyland Kirby. Released on 1 April 2008, it was his first record to cover themes of Alzheimer's disease. The album was also the first Caretaker release to present looping of short segments within tracks. It marked Kirby's change of record labels from V/Vm Test to History Always Favours the Winners, which he felt might have helped with the record's success. ''Persistent Repetition of Phrases'' has many track titles that reference memory disorders. The album began Kirby's history of using paintings by English painter Ivan Seal as album covers. A concept album, the record received a generally positive reception from music critics. The album's concepts would later influence Kirby on his next release as the Caretaker, ''An Empty Bliss Beyond This World''. Background The Caretaker was a musical project of English musician Leyland Kirby that sampled various big band records. Named ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia
''Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia'' is the fourth studio album by the Caretaker, an alias of musician Leyland Kirby. Released in 2005, it abandoned the haunted ballroom aesthetic of the previous albums and explored memory loss. Divided into six CDs, it consists of seventy-two drone tracks combined to create a five-hour long release. It was compared by several critics to other musicians, including Merzbow, Boards of Canada, and Krzysztof Penderecki. The liner notes for ''Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia'' were written by Mark Fisher. The blogger, who referenced the record on his book ''Ghosts of My Life'' (2014), committed suicide in 2017, for which Kirby created '' Take Care. It's a Desert Out There...''. ''Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia'' was met with general praise from music critics, who felt it improved on the Caretaker's style. However, some of the tracks were criticized for their production. The album has since been considered a precursor to the Caretak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films, almost all of which are adaptations of novels or short stories, cover a wide range of genres and are noted for their innovative cinematography, Black comedy, dark humor, realistic attention to detail and extensive set designs. Kubrick was raised in the Bronx, New York City, and attended William Howard Taft High School (New York City), William Howard Taft High School from 1941 to 1945. He received average grades but displayed a keen interest in literature, photography, and film from a young age, and taught himself all aspects of film production and directing after graduating from high school. After working as a photographer for ''Look (American magazine), Look'' magazine in the late 1940s and early 1950s, he began making short films on shoestring budgets, and made his first major Ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
We'll All Go Riding On A Rainbow
''We'll All Go Riding on a Rainbow'' is the third studio album by the Caretaker, an alias of musician Leyland Kirby. Released in 2003, it was the last of Kirby's "haunted ballroom trilogy", which spans his albums influenced by the film '' The Shining''. It features looped melodies and vinyl crackle to create the ambience of ''The Shining''s ballroom, with its artwork emphasizing this style. ''We'll All Go Riding on a Rainbow'' was met with positive reception from music critics, who praised its haunted ballroom ambiance. However, other critics felt that the album's length was an issue. Kirby's next album as the Caretaker, ''Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia'' (2005) would abandon the haunted ballroom concept and install themes of memory loss. Background The Caretaker's first record, ''Selected Memories from the Haunted Ballroom'' (1999), was inspired by the haunted ballroom scene from the film '' The Shining''. Leyland Kirby, the English musician responsible for the Caretaker ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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