James Leyland Kirby’s work as ‘The Caretaker’ has been characterised as exploring memory and its gradual deterioration of it. His work ‘Everywhere at the end of time’ charts The Caretaker’s decline from dementia and finally the alter ego’s ‘death’ The epic work, comprising 6 parts (or stages) has been in progress for 3 years and spans some six and a half hours.

Dementia is the name for a set of symptoms that includes memory loss and difficulties with thinking, problem-solving or language. Dementia develops when the brain is damaged by diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s is a progressive disease and gradually, over time, more parts of the brain are damaged. As this happens, more symptoms develop, and they also get worse.

A fragment from the original 78rpm recording is used by Kirby to become:

Is it exploitative to use dementia as inspiration? Does it romanticise the disease? After all its scary, its sad, and not at all romantic to lose what you love. I think not. Kirby allows you to empathise with music that made you happy long ago, which now slips out of your grasp and is replaced by confusing noise and static.

The acute emotional depth and poignancy of Everywhere at the end of time comes from exquisite fragments of ballroom music taken from decrepit 78rpm records which are smeared together into credible pieces that seem to vanish before our eyes providing a clever metaphor for the agonising insidiousness of dementia. It’s almost as if these tiny fragments are trying to hold on in vain to what was once an infinitely larger reality.

Stage 1 to 3

Even at the start of Stage 1 things are not quite right. The fragile loops are slowed down and filtered with an increasing number of drop outs, the reverberated surface noise becoming ominous electrified noise bursts sounding like neurons firing – or exploding.

In Stage 2 the music is fragile and heart-rending, reflected in titles such as ‘What does it matter how my heart breaks’ and ‘The way ahead feels lonely’.

Stage 3 pushes the disintegration even further with more drop outs and an additional layer of obfuscation

Stage 4 and 5

Now the effects are abruptly transfigured. Traces of the material are hard to make out and the cycle proceeds from mere forgetfulness to a more terrifying blank oblivion.

Stage 6

Stage 6 is almost unfathomable although some fragments retain enough of their essential identity for us to recognise or at least infer with infinite sadness a glimmer of their previous glory.

Eventually everything has an ending and the way Leyland Kirby brings the Everywhere at the end of time cycle to an end is genuinely one of the most stunningly beautiful musical experiences. The final track ‘Place in the World fades away’ has an unexpected closing few minutes, in which we hear a type of music we haven’t heard before in any of the six stages, which is followed by a minute of silence.

Like the biblical tale of Lot’s wife’s fatal backward glance at the city she’d been instructed to leave (Genesis 19) or Truman Burbank’s last survey of his fictional world before stepping outside it (The Truman Show), when something reaches its conclusion it’s tempting to look back and reflect, except of course, in the case of Everywhere at the end of time, it’s ironic to do this since the essence of its entire trajectory runs counter to the possibility of being able to look back, as memory and awareness become ever more dulled, deadened and destroyed.

A wonderful piece of work, and of course, Leyland Kirby is from Manchester so generally walks on water.