A Review of Everywhere At The End Of Time
Everywhere At The End Of Time is an experimental work by the electronic musician Leyland Kirby, known by his professional alias, The Caretaker, which explores the emotions experienced with the advancement of dementia. It is made up of six studio albums released over a three year period, resulting in a six-hour total runtime. Six hours of avant-garde electronic music may not be everyone’s cup of tea; fortunately for you, dear reader, it is mine. In case you haven’t listened to all six hours of Everywhere At The End of Time, I’ve done it for you, and here is a short, not-six-hour-long summary and review.
Stage 1
The first stage of Everywhere At The End Of Time illustrates the onset of memory loss. According to Kirby, it’s like “an old person daydreaming.” Featuring distorted ballroom and big band samples playing and fading out, the first album evokes the feeling of remembering the good old days but forgetting bits here and there. Track titles on this album include “Late afternoon drifting,” “Things that are beautiful and transient,” and “My heart will stop in joy,” reflecting the nostalgia and vague melancholy of reminiscence. Of all the stages, this one is probably the easiest to listen to. I think this stage sounds similar to those lo-fi beats to study to; it wouldn’t hurt to put it on in the background for some dark ambience. It’s not overly depressing and makes for tolerably light listening.
Stage 2
In contrast to the first stage, Stage 2 is much more somber. It describes the “awareness that something is wrong with a refusal to accept that.” The same kind of vintage-sounding ballroom samples from the first stage are even more fragmented in this stage. Overall, the mood is lower, with droning lulls and repetitive loops which can be interpreted as the slow degradation of memories. Stage 2 is still relatively easy listening, just a little sadder. Some track titles on this album include “Surrendering to despair,” “Last moments of pure recall,” and “The way ahead feels lonely.” Some memories can still be accessed, but the sense that something is not right is inescapable.
Stage 3
The third stage is the last stage with coherent memories before post-awareness sets in. The big band samples are heard once again, but now in a strange, echoing way that creates confusion and distance. The tracks in this album are more abstract, with titles like “Internal bewildered World” and “Aching cavern without lucidity.” Sudden pauses throughout the tracks and abrupt endings between them contribute to the feeling of slowly advancing memory loss. As the music and memories become more and more distant, the “last embers of awareness” begin to die out. Listening to this stage while contemplating the fading lucidity that comes with dementia can get sad fast, and for that reason, I don’t recommend putting this one on for background music.
Stage 4
This is the first stage of post-awareness. There are four tracks, three of which are called “Post Awareness Confusions,” and one called, “Temporary Bliss State.” Fragmented melodies can be heard but they’re all mixed up. If you skipped to this album without listening to the first three, it would sound like a garbled mess of random notes, kind of like someone pressing pause over and over on three different songs at once, or a radio switching quickly between channels without stopping on one long enough to get a clear signal through. Kirby calls this stage the one where “serenity and the ability to recall singular memories gives way to confusions and horror.” At this point in the collection, we are definitely past easy listening. This album is unsettling, confusing, and strange.
Stage 5
To describe this album, Kirby says, “The unfamiliar may sound and feel familiar.
Time is often spent only in the moment leading to isolation.” These tracks are more noise than music—filled with static, droning and haunting. There isn’t much to listen to here, just large, empty soundscapes representing the effect that dementia has on the brain. There isn’t as much confusion as Stage 4—just isolation. This stage is about fear and even further loss of lucidity, and listening while trying to imagine what it’s like to slowly lose awareness is a sobering activity.
Stage 6
The final stage. While the other stages each have some sort of short description from Kirby, Stage 6 simply says, “Post-Awareness Stage 6 is without description.” The track titles 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.” These tracks are the end of life and the last moments of post-awareness slipping away. They’re all white noise and static, sounding empty, distant, and isolated. There are no discernable melodies anymore, no fragments of song. The word I would use to describe the stage without description is barren. It’s one whole hour of almost nothing. Yet it still manages to haunt you as you listen, reminding you of the futility of life and memory which can be lost so easily to deterioration and time. The very last track features a final, clear melody, then a full minute of silence. The final melody before ending silence represents terminal lucidity, the phenomenon in which patients experience one final moment of clarity before death.
If you have six hours to spare, I recommend giving Everywhere At The End Of Time a listen, even if you only skim through it. The subject matter is heavy and honestly frightening, and this work manages to convey those uncomfortable feelings so precisely and profoundly that it’s definitely worth the (very long) listen. Just don’t make the same mistake I did and fall asleep part of the way through, because waking up to Stage 5 feeling disoriented from an unexpected nap is not the best experience.