Patience (After Sebald)

Caretaker, The
History Always Favours The Winners
General | Dec 2012

Reviews

Adam Pearson
Reviewed 2012-12-14
Grainy, hypnotic ambient. Drifting, dreamy, cyclic compositions around pianos, organs, keys and hazy tape effects, loops, and found sounds. This album is the soundtrack to the film, Patience (After Sebald). The Caretaker project was inspired by the haunted ballroom scene in Kubrick’s The Shining -- some appropriate context. This is signature James Leyland Kirby, a longtime noise/experimental/ambient artist known for his work under the V/Vm moniker and his own name. Surreal, consonant, arty, peaceful, creepy, and dream-like at the same time. No FCCS, all instrumental.

*1. Echoing ballroom piano eeriness and tape wash. (2:33)
2. Slight variation on 1, repetition can kind of get to you; beautifully numbing. (2:32)
*3. Tactile, snowed-in feel, isolation; completely engulfing. (5:40)
*4. Sounds like a locked groove on a record found in Laura Palmer’s home. Innocent, fragile, and creepy. (4:50)
5. Reserved, relaxed, almost classical. (2:56)
6. Uneasy, repetitive, simple piano. (3:37)
7. Deeper ringing tones in rhythm, and echoey darkness. (4:00)
8. Dark, dreary; another textural wash of oddly pretty gloom. (4:37)
*9. Dramatic male vocal effects and twirling keys create a macabre dance. (4:05)
*10. Sprightly, almost like springtime ballet music, but with a creepy edge. (4:24)
11. Looped weirdo tapes/percussion, really echoey and nightmarish. (4:33)
12. Operatic male vocals slowed down and gentle organ ebbs. (5:14)

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Charting

2012-12-15 — 2013-02-17 Classical/Experimental
Week EndingAirplays
Feb 17 1
Feb 10 1
Feb 3 1
Jan 27 2
Jan 20 1
Jan 13 4
Dec 30 1
Dec 23 1

Track listing

1. Everything Is On The Point Of Decline
2. As If One Were Sinking Into Sand
3. Approaching The Outer Limits Of Our Solar System
4. When The Dog Days Were Drawing To An End
5. A Last Glimpse Of The Land Being Lost Forever
6. The Homesickness That Was Corroding Her Soul
7. I Have Become Almost Invisible, To Some Extent Like A Dead Man
8. In The Deep And Dark Hours Of The Night
9. No One Knows What Shadowy Memories Haunt Them To This Day
10. Increasingly Absorbed In His Own World
11. Isolated Lights On The Abyss Of Ignorance
12. The Night Is Over And The Dawn Is About To Break