Everywhere at the End of Time
2016–2019 album series by the Caretaker From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Everywhere at the End of Time[a] is the eleventh recording by the Caretaker, an alias of English electronic musician Leyland Kirby. Released between 2016 and 2019, its six albums uses degraded samples of ballroom music to portray the stages of Alzheimer's disease. Inspired by the success of An Empty Bliss Beyond This World (2011), Kirby produced the project in Kraków out of his fascination with the topic, and made it his final release under the alias. He released each record after a six-month period for listeners to feel the passage of time, and used abstract art pieces by his friend Ivan Seal as album covers. The series drew comparisons to the works of musicians William Basinski and Burial, while production of the later albums was influenced by the aleatoric music of avant-gardist composer John Cage.
| Everywhere at the End of Time | ||||
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Ivan Seal, Beaten Frowns After, 2016, oil on canvas, cover art for Stage 1 | ||||
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| Studio | Calyx Mastering, Berlin | |||
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| Length | 390:31 (6:30:31) | |||
| Label | History Always Favours the Winners | |||
| Producer | Leyland Kirby | |||
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Everywhere comprises over six hours of music and portrays a range of events in a patient's life, including joy, despair, confusion, horror, isolation and death. Stages 1–3 sample big band music throughout and are the most similar to An Empty Bliss, while Stages 4–6 depart from the Caretaker's older melodic ambient works to form chaotic noise soundscapes. Anonymous visual artist Weirdcore created music videos for the first two stages, which accompanied Kirby's performances. Initially concerned about the project being seen as pretentious, Kirby thought of not creating Everywhere at all, although he spent more time producing it than any of his other releases. Seal's paintings were covered by a French art exhibition named after the Caretaker's Everywhere, an Empty Bliss (2019), a compilation album of scrapped tracks.
As each stage of Everywhere was released, critics felt increasingly positive towards the series, highlighting its length, unusual concept and perceived emotional power. Considered to be Kirby's magnum opus, the project was one of the most praised music releases of the 2010s. During the early 2020s, it became a YouTube and TikTok phenomenon in the form of a listening challenge and recommendation, after which caregivers of people with dementia praised the albums for increasing empathy among younger listeners. The series has since retained status either as a 'dark' project or as a meme in Internet culture, inspiring several similar projects by the Caretaker fanbase. It appeared in a mod for the video game Friday Night Funkin' (2020) and emerged in aesthetic styles such as the analog horror genre, liminal spaces, and the Backrooms.
Background
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In 1999, English electronic musician Leyland Kirby adopted the pseudonym the Caretaker, under which he released several albums sampling big band records to convey a ghostly ambience. He was inspired by a scene of the haunted ballroom from filmmaker Stanley Kubrick's work The Shining (1980), as heard on the debut release of the alias, Selected Memories from the Haunted Ballroom (1999).[1] These first records introduced the ambient style that would become more prominent in his last releases.[2] The project first explored memory in general with Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia (2005), a three-hour-long album portraying the disease of the same name. By 2008, Persistent Repetition of Phrases saw the Caretaker alias gaining a wider critical attention and a larger fanbase.[1]
In 2011, Kirby released An Empty Bliss Beyond This World, attaining acclaim for its exploration of Alzheimer's disease.[1] Although Kirby initially did not want to produce more music as the Caretaker, the album's success compelled him to continue the project. Patience (After Sebald) (2012), his next release, was a soundtrack album which did not feature themes of memory loss nor the same musical style of his other releases. For him, the only concept related to memory left to explore was the full progression of Alzheimer's, which he envisioned would gradually unravel through the six albums of Everywhere at the End of Time.[2] The project is his final release as the Caretaker and also represents the symbolical death of the alias, as according to Kirby, "I just can't see where I can take it after this."[1]
Music, concept and stages
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"For to be capable of remembering this music as a real-time, living culture, you'd have to be in your nineties now. What Kirby presents here could be heard as the faint, faded memory-fragments of once-beloved tunes as they waver on in atrophying minds."[3]
The concept of Everywhere at the End of Time, which has been described as avant-gardist and experimental in nature,[4][5][6] is intended to be an exploration of dementia's "advancement and totality".[7][8][9] Although Alzheimer's has seven stages, the first stage presents no symptoms and is not portrayed in the series, as it would merely present the sourced samples, which Kirby called "Stage 0".[10][11] The six albums features expressive track titles and descriptions for each stage, highlighting the ideas of deterioration, melancholy, confusion, and mortality that are present throughout.[7][12][13] On the work's characterisation of mortality, writer Alexandra Weiss described the series as challenging to Western notions of death.[14] Its portrayal of confusion, according to music website Tiny Mix Tapes, "threatens at every moment to give way to nothing," and renders it the definitve swan song of the Caretaker alias.[15] Big Think's Tim Brinkhof categorised the project as a piece of high culture and called its deterioration 'terrifying', due to manipulating Roaring Twenties and Jazz Age samples into incoherent white noise.[16]
Everywhere's exploration of decay drew comparisons to The Disintegration Loops (2002–2003) by musician William Basinski,[2][17] which, unlike Kirby's software-induced decay representative of a neurological disease, focuses on physical tape decay in coincidence with the September 11 attacks.[13][18][19] Although positive of Basinski's works, Kirby said his own "aren't just loops breaking down. They're about why they're breaking down, and how."[2] Author Matt Colquhoun of The Quietus compared the sound of the series to the style of electronic musician Burial, as both artists "highlight the 'broken time of the twenty-first century'", while Daniel Bromfiled of 48 Hills likened the project's aesthetic qualities to the fictional VHS tapes found throughout the plot of Canadian film Skinamarink (2022).[13][20][21] While reviewing the first stage, writers Adrian Mark Lore and Andrea Savage recommended the record for enjoyers of Basinski, Stars of the Lid, and Brian Eno.[22] Music magazine Fact noted a "hauntological link" between the ballroom records sampled in each stage and the Muzak songs modified in vaporwave albums, while author Sarah Nove highlighted the series' lack of a physical form of aura.[23][24]
The songs of Everywhere get more distorted with each stage to refelct the patient's memory and its deterioration, being described by writer Frank Falisi as "fundamentally sentimental cultural object[s]".[25][26] The jazz style of the first three stages is reminiscent of An Empty Bliss, using loops from vinyl records and wax cylinders. On Stage 3, the songs are shorter—some lasting for only one minute—and typically avoid fade-outs.[6][13] The Post-Awareness stages reflect Kirby's desire to "explore complete confusion, where everything starts breaking down."[5] The two penultimate stages represent the patient's altered perception of reality through more chaotic soundscapes, while the final stage portrays the emptiness of the afflicted person's mind through drones.[17][27] Stages 4–6 are often highlighted as the focus of the series: Miles Bowe of Pitchfork wrote about the contrast of the later stages to Kirby's other ambient works as "evolving its sound in new and often frightening ways",[28] while Kirby described the series to be "more about the last three [stages] than the first three."[2] In their Handbook of the Anthropology of Sound, Bloomsbury Academic describes the later stages as "a disorienting cut-up of slurred reminiscences bathing in a reverberant fog", relating them to amusia and its effects on musical memory.[29]
Stages 1–3
| Everywhere at the End of Time – Stages 1–3 | ||||
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 Beaten Frowns After, 2016; Pittor Pickgown in Khatheinstersper, 2015; Hag, 2014 | ||||
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A1 – "It's Just a Burning Memory"[b] | ||||
Stage 1 represents the initial signs of memory deterioration, being the closest album in the series to "a beautiful daydream".[7] On its vinyl release, it features inscripted text reading "Memories That Last a Lifetime".[30] Like An Empty Bliss,[31] Stage 1's samples are looped and altered with pitch changes, reverberation, overtones, and vinyl crackle.[32] The album features a mostly positive emotional tone, demonstrated by the notions its song titles evoke.[13][33] Names such as "Into each other's eyes" may be interpreted as a romantic memory, while more ominous titles, such as "We Don't Have Many Days", point to the patient's recognition of their own mortality.[34][35] Despite being an upbeat release by the Caretaker,[36] some of its big band compositions are more distorted and melancholic than others.[31][37][38] Michele Palozzo of Italian music publication Ondarock likened the record's "elegance" to Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999) and its dramatic "avidity" to the works of filmmaker Woody Allen.[39] The album's joyful sound is contrasted by one of the sentences in its description, where Kirby clarifies these are "the last of the great days."[7]
Stage 2 is the "self-realization that something is wrong and a refusal to accept that."[7] In Kirby's description, a person in this stage usually makes more attempts to recall than normal.[1] In contrast with the first stage's joyful sound, he noted the second stage as featuring "a massive difference between the moods",[1] with "A Losing Battle Is Raging" representing a transition between the two.[34] Compared with Stage 1, the album features an emotionally charged tone, with more melancholic, degraded and droning samples.[13][40][41] Its source material presents significantly more static than the first stage, exploring a hauntological ambience.[41] Track titles, such as "Surrendering to Despair", represent the patient's awareness of their disorder and the accompanying sorrow, while "The Way Ahead Feels Lonely" is directly lifted from a book on dementia by Sally Magnusson.[42] The songs play for longer times and feature fewer loops, but are more deteriorated in quality,[13] symbolising the person's realization of their faulty memory.[43] The album's description also states the "mood is generally lower", but still not to a level where "confusion starts setting in."[7]
Stage 3 presents "some of the last coherent memories before confusion fully rolls in and the grey mists form and fade away."[7] A good portion of the tracks are samples from An Empty Bliss, some returning with an underwater-like sound and ending abruptly, portraying the patient's growing despair and struggle to keep their memories.[13][35] Tracks titles combine names from the previous stages and from An Empty Bliss, creating abstract phrases such as "Sublime Beyond Loss" and "Internal Bewildered World".[35] Three of these are named after American neuroscientist Benjamin Libet: "Back There Benjamin", "Libet's All Joyful Camaraderie", and "Libet Delay".[7] Online magazine Entropy described Stage 3's deterioration as the most distant from William Basinski's method of decay, and noted the record's "more direct, less intellectualized approach" to it when compared to the works of German musician Stephan Mathieu.[18] The latter half of the album presents the last recognizable melodies, although some tracks nearly lose their melodic qualities.[35] Kirby explained these are the last moments that the patient knows of their dementia, representing "the last embers of awareness before we enter the post awareness stages."[2][7]
The opening track of Everywhere, "It's Just a Burning Memory", introduces "Heartaches", one of the main samples that gradually degrade throughout the series.[13] In Stage 1, it is a version by Al Bowlly, which is one of the most sampled musicians in the Caretaker alias.[2] The third track of Stage 2, "What Does It Matter How My Heart Breaks", returns "Heartaches" in a lethargic tone,[13] using the Seger Ellis cover of the song. This specific version, in contrast to its Stage 1 counterpart, sounded downbeat to Kirby.[1] By the second track of Stage 3, "And Heart Breaks", the last coherent version of "Heartaches" can be found, where its horn aspects become more similar to white noise.[13] These tracks sampling "Heartaches" take their title from the sample's lyrics, which surround themes of memory; in the Al Bowlly cover, he sings, "I can't believe it's just a burning memory / Heartaches, heartaches / What does it matter how my heart breaks?"[44]
Stages 4–6
| Everywhere at the End of Time – Stages 4–6 | ||||
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 Giltsholder, 2017; Eptitranxisticemestionscers Desending, 2017; Necrotomigaud, 2018 | ||||
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"H1 – Post Awareness Confusions" | ||||
"R1 – Place in the World Fades Away" | ||||
Stage 4 is the point at which "the ability to recall singular memories gives way to confusions and horror."[7] It presents heavy distortion and reverberation and is more akin to noise, in contrast to the first three albums which featured the same style as An Empty Bliss.[13][28] Marking the start of the "Post-Awareness" stages,[45][46] its four compositions occupy whole vinyl side lengths.[47] Tracks G1, H1 and J1 share the name "Post Awareness Confusions", which Bowe felt carried a clinical rather than emotional sense to them, while I1 is titled "Temporary Bliss State".[28] One specific segment of H1, known by fans as the "Hell Sirens", presents a horn sample that Hazelwood felt was "one of the most horrifying moments of the series."[13] However, "Temporary Bliss State" is a track calmer than the "Post Awareness Confusions" tracks, featuring a more ethereal sound.[28] The surreal and incoherent aspect of the melodies was compared by Bowe to experimental musician Oval's album 94 Diskont (1995), as they "capture the darkest, most damaged sounds in the project's lifespan."[27][28] This, according to Kirby, represents the Caretaker's memories becoming "more fluid through entanglements, repetition and rupture."[7]
Stage 5 has "more extreme entanglements, repetition and rupture [that] can give way to calmer moments."[7] The album expands its noise influence by replacing the previosly coherent melodies with violently overlapped samples, resulting in a sound similar to the works of Merzbow and John Wiese.[13][48] Tracks K1 and L1 share the name "Advanced Plaque Entanglements", while M1 and N1 are titled "Synapse Retrogenesis" and "Sudden Time Regression Into Isolation" respectively. Akin to Stage 4, they are clinical in nature, being directly named after structures and concepts such as amyloid plaques, neurofibrillary tangles, synapses and the retrogenesis hypothesis.[13] According to Kirby's description, the "isolation" is a result of the patient's time "often [being] spent only in the moment".[7] The record uses the most vocals of the series, including whispers and recognisable English words; near the end of K1, a man announces, "This selection will be a mandolin solo by Mr. James Fitzgerald."[13][48][49] To Falisi, Stage 5 represents a metaphorical ghost causing the patient to lose their identity; whereas the first stages saw this ghost "drifting through a crumbled mansion, losing and lost," in Stage 5 it appears "compounding a failing system with the uncanny choke of absence."[50]
Stage 6 is cryptically described: "Post-Awareness Stage 6 is without description."[7] As the most interpretative record of the series, the album consists of sound collages forming a void of sound in which music is audible, yet distant.[51][52][53] It is the most distant from the sound of An Empty Bliss and portrays feelings of anxiety, heartbreak, distress, isolation and other "unknown emotions, states and perspectives," according to The Quietus.[17][54] While Stage 5 had snippets of instruments and voices, Stage 6 features mostly drowned, empty compositions consisting of hissing and crackling, which Hazelwood interpreted as portraying the patient's apathy.[13][55][56] It is the only Post-Awareness stage to feature emotional rather than clinical song titles, which are "A Confusion So Thick You Forget Forgetting", "A Brutal Bliss Beyond This Empty Defeat", "Long Decline Is Over" and "Place in the World Fades Away".[13] After releasing Stage 6, Kirby commented on the YouTube video of the complete edition: "Thanks for the support through the years. May the ballroom remain eternal. C'est fini."[c][7]
The final track, "Place in the World Fades Away", features organ drones which have been compared to the 2014 film Interstellar's soundtrack.[57] The organ eventually gives way to a needle drop, leading to the climax of the series six minutes before the project's end: a clearly audible choir sourced from a degraded vinyl record.[13][17][51] The segment ends with a minute of silence, representing the patient's death. Although the moment evoked varying interpretations from commentators, the most accepted theory by critics and medics is that it represents terminal lucidity, a phenomenon where patients suffering from neurological conditions experience a return of mental clarity shortly before death.[13][58] Falisi considered it the movement of the patient's soul to the afterlife, while the sound itself was identified by Bandcamp Daily's Matt Mitchell as ending the series in "ethereal catharsis".[55][59] The segment samples a performance of an English translation of Bach's aria "Lasst mich ihn nur noch einmal küssen"[d] of the St Luke Passion, BWV 246. This aria was also used on the track "Friends Past Reunited" from Selected Memories from the Haunted Ballroom (1999) and A Stairway to the Stars (2001), two of the Caretaker's first albums,[60] a fact interpreted by writer Paul Simpson of AllMusic as the alias in a "full circle moment".[48]
Production
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Kirby produced Everywhere at the End of Time at his flat in Kraków using a computer "designed specifically for the production of music". He made more tracks for the first stage alone than in the alias' entire history. Each album produced at least a few months before their release; Stage 3's development began in September 2016 and Stage 6 began in May 2018.[1][61] According to Kirby, the first three stages have "subtle but crucial differences", presenting the same general style "based on the mood and the awareness that a person with the condition would feel."[62] He wanted the mastering process, done by Andreas "Lupo" Lubich,[63] to be "consistent sounding all the way through". One of the compositional strategies of the series was to use various covers of sampled songs to associate specific emotional messages with each. Rather than buying physical records as he did with An Empty Bliss, Kirby found most samples online, stating, "It's possible to find ten versions of one song now." He noted that Stage 1 looped short sections of songs while Stage 2 would let the samples fully play, and confirmed that this was intentional. Describing Stage 3 to be the most similar to An Empty Bliss, Kirby stated Stages 1–3 could potentially be listened to on shuffle and still remain cohesive.[1] Between the release of the third and fourth stages, he said he felt overwhelmed by the workload associated with the Caretaker, and announced he was "moving house and studio".[64]
Kirby's production focus in Everywhere was on the last three stages,[1][2][65] where he wanted to create what he called a "listenable chaos".[62] In a Reddit comment, he later clarified that artificial intelligence was never involved in the production process of Stages 4–6, but rather an unspecified "piece of music software used in a way that it was not designed to be used."[66] While producing Stage 4, Kirby realised that the final three stages "had to be made from the viewpoint of post-awareness," a term meaning the patient no longer knows of their diagnosis.[62] He reported feeling pressured while working on the final three stages, saying, "I'd be finishing one stage, mastering another, all whilst starting another stage." In composing the fourth and fifth stages, Kirby stated he possessed over 200 hours of music and "compiled it based on mood".[65] The Believer's Landon Bates likened Stage 4 to "Radio Music" (1956) by composer John Cage, to which Kirby responded that Cage's style of aleatoric music—music with random elements—actually inspired the production process of the later stages.[62] Stage 5, according to Kirby, features "a distinct change" from Stage 4, writing that this difference is subtle but represents "a crucial symptom."[1] The production of the final stage was the hardest for him, due to the public's expectations and "the weight of the previous five [stages] falling all on this now."[62]
Artwork and packaging
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"You can't trust any memories at all, can you? Because it's all glitched [and] nonsense in a way."[67]
The album covers for Everywhere at the End of Time are abstract oil on canvas paintings by Kirby's long-time friend Ivan Seal.[68][69] They are minimalist in their style, each presenting a single object of focus and no text, and become less recognisable with each stage.[37][70] Tiny Mix Tapes included Beaten Frowns After, the artwork for Stage 1, in their lists for best album covers of 2016 and of the 2010s.[71][72] Some have compared the artistic themes of Kirby and Seal; like Kirby, Seal highlights memory as a central part of art, and said, "Art is always working from memory".[67][68] Noting this overlap, Kirby said that both visions "collide in a great way".[62]
The first three album covers are titled Beaten Frowns After (2016), Pittor Pickgown in Khatheinstersper (2015) and Hag (2014), respectively.[73][74] Beaten Frowns After features a grey unravelling scroll on a vacant horizon, with newspaper folds similar to a brain's creases,[37] being likened by Teen Ink writer Sydney Leahy to the patient's potential awareness of the disease's progression.[70] Pittor Pickgown in Khatheinstersper portrays four wilting flowers in an abstract rotten rock vase.[41][70][75] Hag presents a kelp plant distorted to the extreme, which Sam Goldner of Tiny Mix Tapes described as "a vase spilling out into ripples of disorder."[70][75]
The paintings for the final three stages are respectively titled Giltsholder (2017), Eptitranxisticemestionscers Desending (2017) and Necrotomigaud (2018).[74] Giltsholder is the only artwork to present a human figure, in the form of a blue-and-green bust with unrecognisable facial features. According to Goldner, the figure appears smiling when viewed from a distance, while Leahy interpreted it as representing the patient's lack of capability to recognise a person.[75][70] Considered the most abstract cover, Eptitranxisticemestionscers Desending depicts an abstract mass, which has been variously described as a woman, a marble-like staircase or both. Hazelwood interpreted it as representing the patient's mind, which once presented recognisable experiences now indistinguishable from noise.[13][70] Necrotomigaud presents an art board with a square of loosely attached blue tape, reflecting the emotional emptiness of Stage 6.[51][70]
Seal's paintings and the Caretaker's music were featured in the 2019 French art exhibition Everywhere, an Empty Bliss by the company FRAC Auvergne, which featured documents about the duo's work and revealed the names of the album covers.[73][74][76] Previously, Seal's paintings were also featured near one of Kirby's performances in the 2019 exhibition Cukuwruums.[68] In 2018, when asked why the packaging of his releases did not present any descriptions, Kirby said Seal's paintings are the main focus to each stage. He stated that liner notes would distract from Seal's art, and that he kept them in digital form for listeners that "search a little deeper".[62]
Release and promotion
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Kirby initially thought of not producing Everywhere at the End of Time at all. For months before the release of the first stage, he mentioned the concept to friends and family, explaining he "wanted to be sure it didn't come across as this highbrow, pretentious idea."[1] The albums were released over a timespan of three years: the first stage in 2016,[77][78][79] the next two in 2017,[80][81][82] the penultimate two in 2018,[83][84][85] and the final one in 2019.[86][87][88] According to Kirby, the delays intended to "give a sense of time passing" to the listeners.[1] Although he expressed concern with dementia as a social problem, Kirby said the disorder does not affect him personally, noting how it turned into "more of a fascination than a fear" for him.[2][62][65] He additionally stated that each dementia patient's experience is unique, and that his portrayal was "only unique to the Caretaker".[65] Initially, none of Kirby's music was available on Spotify and other streaming services due to his criticism of it.[89] However, in December 2023, he reluctantly uploaded his most popular albums as the Caretaker onto them, including all stages of Everywhere mentioning their intellectual property as the main reason and citing "bad actors and snide uploaders" who monetised his work without his permission.[90]
Stage 6 release note
"When work began on this series it was difficult to predict how the music would unravel itself. Dementia is an emotive subject for many and always a subject I have treated with maximum respect.
Stages have all been artistic reflections of specific symptoms which can be common with the progression and advancement of the different forms of Alzheimer's.
Thanks always for your support of this series of works remembered by The Caretaker."[6]
When releasing the first stage on 22 September 2016, Kirby announced the series' concept,[91] "diagnosing" the Caretaker alias with dementia through albums that reveal "progression, loss and disintegration" as they fell "towards the abyss of complete memory loss".[92][93] This statement misled some to believe that Kirby himself had been diagnosed with early-onset dementia, namely The Fader's Jordan Darville and Marvin Lin of Tiny Mix Tapes. Both publications updated their posts when Kirby clarified that he did not have dementia; only the Caretaker persona did.[93][94][95] He released Stage 3 and We, So Tired of All the Darkness in Our Lives on the same day, the latter under his own name.[64] Releasing Stage 5, Kirby's press release compared the series' progression to the then-ongoing Brexit process.[96] The Caretaker's final record, released alongside Stage 6, was Everywhere, an Empty Bliss (2019), a compilation album of scrapped material from Everywhere.[97][98][99] In March 2022, Kirby released the single "We Are in the Shadow of a Distant Fire" under an unspecified alias, and later unlisted the track on his own channel.[100]
Anonymous visual artist Weirdcore, known for creating visuals for ambient musician Aphex Twin, produced music videos for the first two stages.[101] Both were uploaded to Kirby's YouTube channel vvmtest, which takes its name from his old record label V/Vm Test Records.[102][103] Released in September 2016 and 2017, they feature effects such as time-stretching and delay, with Kirby saying their "otherworldy" visuals are important to his music.[101][62] In 2020, Kirby and Weirdcore again collaborated in the YouTube video "[−0º]", which was chosen as one of the best audiovisual works of the year by Fact.[104][105] As of 5 March 2025, there are no official music videos on vvmtest for the last four stages, nor any official announcements of a release date for them.[106]
In December 2017, Kirby performed at the Kraków Barbican for the Unsound Festival in Poland. The show was his first since 2011, and featured Seal's art and Weirdcore's visuals.[107][108][109] The music videos would be presented throughout the Caretaker's following shows. In March 2018, Kirby was featured at Festival Présences électronique in Paris,[110] where he played a version of the 1944 song "Ce Soir" by singer Tino Rossi.[61] He participated at Unsound's May 2019 "Solidarity" show, also set in Krakow.[111] In April 2020, he was due to perform live for the "[Re]setting" Rewire Festival, which would have occurred at the Hague in the Netherlands. However, the show was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[112][113] Kirby performed at the Donaufestival in Krems' and Primavera Sound in Barcelona during 2022, while 2023 saw him hosting an Unsound performance in New York City.[114][115][116] Although he previously expressed hesitation to perform,[2] Kirby said each show would now be "a battle to make sense from the confusion". He added that Weirdcore would bring Seal's paintings "alive", and that the visual art would explore the idea of making the audience "feel ill".[65]
Critical reception
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| Review scores | |
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| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   (Stages 1–3)[35] (Stages 4–6)[48] |
| Ondarock | 9/10 (Stage 1)[39] 8/10 (Stage 6)[53] |
| Pitchfork | 7.3/10 (Stage 1)[32] 7.9/10 (Stage 4)[28] |
| Resident Advisor | 4.3/5 (Stage 6)[51] |
| Tiny Mix Tapes | 4/5 (Stage 1)[37] 3.5/5 (Stage 2)[41] 4.5/5 (Stage 4)[75] 3.5/5 (Stage 5)[50] 4.5/5 (Stage 6)[55] |
Everywhere at the End of Time received increasingly positive reactions as it progressed, and was, overall, met with universal acclaim.[1][17][117] Of the project's more widespread success relative to An Empty Bliss, NPR writer Meaghan Garvey said Kirby's concept of representing Alzheimer's in music was "loaded beyond the capacities of a 40-some-minute ambient record", while Kelly Scanlon of Far Out Magazine stated that he went beyond the previous previous record's "day in a life" portrayal.[5][11] Conversely, Paste's Matt Mitchell wrote that no track in the series has the "grievous splendor" of "Libet's Delay", one of the most popular tracks from An Empty Bliss.[117] In March 2021, Everywhere peaked as the best-selling record on Boomkat,[118] the platform Kirby uses for his physical releases.[7] Initially, in response to "today's culture of instant reaction", Kirby said, "these parts have been looped for a specific reason ... which will become clear down the line."[1]
The first three stages of the series were criticised for their portrayal of dementia. Pitchfork contributor Brian Howe expressed concern for the romanticised view of Alzheimer's in Stage 1. He found Kirby's description inaccurate; Howe "watched [his] grandmother succumb to it for a decade before she died, and it was very little like a 'beautiful daydream.' In fact, there was nothing aesthetic about it."[32] Pat Beane of Tiny Mix Tapes considered Stage 1 the most "pleasurable listen from [t]he Caretaker",[37] while Falisi regarded Stage 2 as neither "decay or beauty", "diagnosis or cure".[41] Entropy considered Stage 3 the most intriguing of the first three stages, as it portrays the sensitive topic of dementia with "moving tenderness."[18] The album was alternatively described by Hazelwood as continuing Kirby's default "bag of tricks", although she nevertheless argued that "without those stages and their comforts, the transition into Stage 4 wouldn't have the crushing impact it does."[13]
Critics generally agreed that Kirby's portrayal of dementia improved with Stages 4–6. Pitchfork contributor Miles Bowe described Stage 4 as avoiding "a risk of pale romanticization",[28] and Goldner felt that the record had "broken the loop", although he added that "Temporary Bliss State" is not "real dementia".[75] Falisi, referring to Goldner's description of the "broken loop" in Stage 4, considered such loop in Stage 5 to be "unspooling (endlessly) off the capstans and piling up until new shapes form." He praised the fifth stage's "four sprawled teeth of tracks" for completely abandoning the comfort of Stage 1, saying the record "hurts."[50] Characterisations of Stage 6 ranged from "a mental descent rendered in agonizingly slow motion" to "something extra-ambient whose aches are of the cosmos."[51][55] Commentators often described the last stage with additional praise; one called it a "jaw-dropping piece of sonic art" with "a unique force".[51][119]
Critics have also commented on the interpretative, "thought-provoking" feelings evoked by the series as a whole.[19][120] Dave Gurney of Tiny Mix Tapes called the compilation "disturbing",[121] while Hazelwood said that its music "sticks with you, its melodies haunting and infecting."[13] Luka Vukos, in his review for the blog HeadStuff, argued that the "empathy machine" of the series "is characterized not by words" but rather "rests in [Kirby's] marrying of [the vinyl record] with the most contemporary modes of digital recall and manipulation."[60] Having written about some of Kirby's earlier music, Simon Reynolds said the Caretaker "could have renamed himself the Caregiver, for on this project he resembles a sonic nurse in a hospice for the terminally ill." In his opinion, Kirby's names for the tracks are "heartbreaking and often describe the music more effectively than the reviewer ever could."[3]
Accolades
Everywhere at the End of Time appeared the most on year-end lists of The Quietus and Tiny Mix Tapes. The latter reviewed each album, except for Stage 3, and gave the first, fourth and sixth stages the "EUREKA!" award, given to albums "explor[ing] the limits of noise and music" and "worthy of careful consideration".[37][55][75] Resident Advisor included Stage 6 in its listing of 2019's best albums.[122] Quietus contributor Maria Perevedentseva chose "We Don't Have Many Days" as one of the best songs of 2016,[123] and Stage 5 would later be included in the publication's listing of the best music of September 2018.[124] Stage 6 was named the website's "Lead Review" of the week and the best "miscellaneous" music release of 2019.[17][125]
| Album | Year | Publication | List | Rank | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stage 1 | 2016 | The Quietus | Year-end | 16 | [126] |
| Tiny Mix Tapes | 35 | [127] | |||
| Stage 2 | 2017 | The Quietus | Semester-end | 88 | [128] |
| Stage 3 | Year-end | 39 | [129] | ||
| Stage 4 | 2018 | Tiny Mix Tapes | 26 | [130] | |
| The Quietus | Semester-end | 37 | [131] | ||
| Stage 5 | Year-end | 45 | [132] | ||
| Stage 6 | 2019 | Semester-end | 59 | [133] | |
| Obscure Sound | Year-end | 19 | [12] | ||
| Ondarock | 38 | [134] | |||
| Il Giornale della Musica | 12 | [135] | |||
| Stages 1–6 | A Closer Listen | Decade-end | 4 | [136] | |
| Tiny Mix Tapes | 41 | [121] | |||
| Ondarock | 42 | [137] | |||
| Spex | 133 | [138] | |||
| Stages 4–6 | The Wire | Year-end | 35 | [139] |
Impact and popularity
Summarize
Perspective
Everywhere at the End of Time is regarded by several critics and musicians, including James Webster of vaporwave group Death's Dynamic Shroud, as the Caretaker's magnum opus.[140][141][142] The albums in the series are considered some of the best of the 2010s, and the chaos of the fourth and fifth stages was remarked for its perceived imposition of contemplative power unto the listener.[121][143][27] Everywhere's conceptualisation of dementia was described by The Vinyl Factory as "remarkably emotive" and by Vogue's Corey Seymour as "life-changing".[144][145] Tiny Mix Tapes writer Jessie Dunn Rovinelli said the expectations set by Kirby for the project were met, "all of them, head on," and called it a 'masterpiece,' while Darren McGarvey of Daily Record felt "struck by a deep sense of gratitude" after finishing the series.[146][147] Author Adam Flynn highlighted Everywhere as the culmination of "an extremely important corpus of work of this century", while Cole Quinn called it the greatest album of all time.[148][34] Inspired by the Caretaker,[149] several vaporwave musicians whose elder relatives had dementia released the 100-track album Memories Overlooked in 2017.[23][150][151]
The album cover of Memories Overlooked (2017)
.jpg)
Text from the thumbnail of a YouTube video about Everywhere at the End of Time
In 2017, various vaporwave musicians released the seven-hour-long compilation album Memories Overlooked in tribute of the Caretaker alias.[151] In 2020, Internet users popularised the series for its 'breaking' reflection of dementia, resulting in the creation of creepypasta and meme-related content.[5]
In January 2020, American YouTuber Solar Sands uploaded the video "Can You Name One Object In This Photo?", which partly examines the abstract aspects of Seal's art in combination with the concept and stages in Everywhere.[19] It received over four million views as of 5 March 2025.[152] Later in October, users on the social media platform TikTok created a challenge of listening to the entire series in one sitting, due to its long length and existential themes.[153][154][155] Kirby knew about the phenomenon from an exponential growth of views on the series' YouTube upload, over 36 million as of 5 March 2025;[7] only 12% of them came from the platform's algorithm, whereas direct searches made up over 50%.[143][156] In a video some writers hypothesized as the cause of Everywhere's popularity, YouTuber A Bucket of Jake called the series "the darkest album I have ever heard", and also references the video by Solar Sands.[5][157][158] Following its popularity, the series appeared more often on Bandcamp's ambient recommendations.[159]
Some TikTok users shared fictional creepypasta stories of Everywhere with claims that it cures patients or, conversely, that it introduces symptoms of dementia in people.[4][160] The claims and the listening challenge triggered a negative backlash from others, who felt it offended Alzheimer's patients and the purpose of the series itself.[4][5][157] Kirby, in contrast to these complaints, saw the phenomenon in a positive light, highlighting those who may have gained "an understanding into the symptoms a person with dementia may face."[143][156] Lazlo Rugoff of the Vinyl Factory found the TikTok phenomenon drew "an unlikely audience" of teenagers to Kirby's music," while Conor Lochrie of Vinyl Group's Tone Deaf opined that teens, rather than being disrespectful, "were devoting themselves to ... challenging art".[153][161] The project was later called by TikTok's William Gruger a niche discovery and "unexpected hit".[162]
Everywhere has seen continued use as a meme throughout the early 2020s, partly coinciding with the period of the COVID-19 pandemic and its mental health issues on teenagers.[4][5] In 2021, it gained attention among the modding community of the rhythm game Friday Night Funkin' (2020) with the mod Everywhere at the End of Funk, which was described by Wren Romero of esports group Gamurs as "one of the most unique experiences of any FNF mod."[163] The series was also popularized for its relation to the Backrooms, a creepypasta about an endless empty office space, which writer Silvia Trevisson said stemmed from their similar portrayals of absurd states of mind.[164] Of its relation to popular Internet aesthetics, projectionist Harry Nordlinger commented that warped styles as liminal spaces and the analog horror subgenre end up reflecting on Everywhere, as such visuals form the zeitgeist of Millennial and Gen Z individuals.[21] In 2024, "It's Just a Burning Memory" was played near the end of a Coachella performance by American singer Lana Del Rey; she related to the series after witnessing her grandfather's struggle with dementia, saying "it didn't seem fair and it made it hard to enjoy life to its fullest knowing he was suffering."[165]
Scientific response
Within neurological research groups, Everywhere at the End of Time has been seen as a generally positive influence. One Iowa State University researcher found the series to present the "chilling reality" of Alzheimer's disease, highlighting the gradual progression of calmness into confusion.[166] Brian Browne, the president of Dementia Care Education, said Kirby's portrayal of Alzheimer's disease is "a much welcome thing" to caretakers of dementia patients. He praised the series' newfound attention, as "it produces the empathy that's needed."[4]
Browne concludes:
The composer of this music really was onto something in terms of being able to — through the medium of music — lead a younger generation on a journey through the sounds of what the brain is going through, through a dementing process.
Partially positive of Kirby's work, French neuropsychologist Hervé Platel praised Everywhere's approach and general faithfulness to the process of dementia. However, Platel also criticised the series for giving the impression of memory as a linear system and stated that musical memory is the last to fade away.[167]
Track listing
Summarize
Perspective
Adapted from Bandcamp.[6] Notes adapted from Kirby's YouTube uploads of Stages 1–3,[102][103][168] Stages 4–6,[49][169][170] and the complete edition.[7]
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "A1 – It's just a burning memory" | 3:32 |
| 2. | "A2 – We don't have many days" | 3:30 |
| 3. | "A3 – Late afternoon drifting" | 3:35 |
| 4. | "A4 – Childishly fresh eyes" | 2:58 |
| 5. | "A5 – Slightly bewildered" | 2:01 |
| 6. | "A6 – Things that are beautiful and transient" | 4:34 |
| 7. | "B1 – All that follows is true" | 3:31 |
| 8. | "B2 – An autumnal equinox" | 2:46 |
| 9. | "B3 – Quiet internal rebellions" (replaced by Stage 3's "Long term dusk glimpses" on YouTube) | 3:30 |
| 10. | "B4 – The loves of my entire life" | 4:04 |
| 11. | "B5 – Into each others eyes" | 4:36 |
| 12. | "B6 – My heart will stop in joy" | 2:41 |
| Total length: | 41:17 | |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 13. | "C1 – A losing battle is raging" | 4:37 |
| 14. | "C2 – Misplaced in time" | 4:42 |
| 15. | "C3 – What does it matter how my heart breaks" | 2:37 |
| 16. | "C4 – Glimpses of hope in trying times" | 4:43 |
| 17. | "C5 – Surrendering to despair" | 5:03 |
| 18. | "D1 – I still feel as though I am me" | 4:07 |
| 19. | "D2 – Quiet dusk coming early" | 3:36 |
| 20. | "D3 – Last moments of pure recall" | 3:52 |
| 21. | "D4 – Denial unravelling" | 4:16 |
| 22. | "D5 – The way ahead feels lonely" (titled "The Away [sic] Ahead Feels Lonely" on Weirdcore's video) | 4:15 |
| Total length: | 41:48 | |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 23. | "E1 – Back there Benjamin" | 4:14 |
| 24. | "E2 – And heart breaks" | 4:05 |
| 25. | "E3 – Hidden sea buried deep" | 1:20 |
| 26. | "E4 – Libet's all joyful camaraderie" | 3:12 |
| 27. | "E5 – To the minimal great hidden" | 1:41 |
| 28. | "E6 – Sublime beyond loss" | 2:10 |
| 29. | "E7 – Bewildered in other eyes" (titled "Bewildered in Others Eyes" on the Stage 3 Boomkat page) | 1:51 |
| 30. | "E8 – Long term dusk glimpses" | 3:33 |
| 31. | "F1 – Gradations of arms length" | 1:31 |
| 32. | "F2 – Drifting time misplaced" (titled "Drifting time replaced" on the Stage 3 YouTube upload) | 4:15 |
| 33. | "F3 – Internal bewildered World" | 3:29 |
| 34. | "F4 – Burning despair does ache" | 2:37 |
| 35. | "F5 – Aching cavern without lucidity" | 1:19 |
| 36. | "F6 – An empty bliss beyond this World" | 3:36 |
| 37. | "F7 – Libet delay" | 3:57 |
| 38. | "F8 – Mournful cameraderie [sic]" | 2:39 |
| Total length: | 45:29 | |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 39. | "G1 – Post Awareness Confusions" | 22:09 |
| 40. | "H1 – Post Awareness Confusions" | 21:53 |
| 41. | "I1 – Temporary Bliss State" | 21:01 |
| 42. | "J1 – Post Awareness Confusions" | 22:16 |
| Total length: | 87:19 | |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 43. | "K1 – Advanced plaque entanglements" | 22:35 |
| 44. | "L1 – Advanced plaque entanglements" | 22:48 |
| 45. | "M1 – Synapse retrogenesis" | 20:48 |
| 46. | "N1 – Sudden time regression into isolation" | 22:08 |
| Total length: | 88:19 | |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 47. | "O1 – A confusion so thick you forget forgetting" (excludes the "A" on Boomkat) | 21:52 |
| 48. | "P1 – A brutal bliss beyond this empty defeat" | 21:36 |
| 49. | "Q1 – Long decline is over" | 21:09 |
| 50. | "R1 – Place in the World fades away" | 21:19 |
| Total length: | 85:56 | |
Personnel
Credits adapted from YouTube.[7]
- Leyland Kirby – producer
- Ivan Seal – artwork
- Andreas Lubich – mastering
Release history
All released worldwide by record label History Always Favours the Winners.
See also
- Alzheimer's disease in the media
- It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012), a film series portraying mental illness and immortality
- List of concept albums
- Music therapy for Alzheimer's disease
- William Utermohlen, an artist with Alzheimer's disease who drew six self-portraits to chronicle the disorder's advancement
Notes
- Stylised in sentence case on Bandcamp.
- Lyrics from "Heartaches" (1931).
References
External links
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