The Caretaker - Everywhere at the End of an Empty Bliss (2024) [FULL ALBUM]

This is the full album release of The Caretaker's "Everywhere at the End of an Empty Bliss" (2024), commissioned by PODO Museum for their "Perhaps Sunny Days" group exhibition. This edition was used from March 20th, 2024 to circa. April 2024, when it was replaced with a modified shortened version. ====== James Leyland Kirby, better known as The Caretaker in the field of ambient music, and painter Ivan Seal have produced poignant works addressing sensitive themes such as memory loss and cognitive impairment since their initial encounter in the early 1990s. Presented here for the first time are "Everywhere at the End of an Empty Bliss", an album by The Caretaker, and Seal’s eleven-piece series, including "A.ZCHRL:ONE", specially commissioned for this exhibition at PODO Museum. These works illuminate the gradual decline of memories and cognitive faculties concerning both objects and the external world. "Everywhere at the End of an Empty Bliss", The Caretaker’s album comprises eleven tracks spanning a total duration of forty-three minutes. From Track 1 to Track 8, the initial twenty-two minutes sound like an old vinyl record with somewhat crude but warm melodies. As the album progresses, bursts of intense sonic distortions and noises interject, ultimately producing an indescernible reverberation that permeates the entire gallery space. This deliberate manipulation of familiar and soothing music into an experimental composition reflects the artist’s endeavor to depict the symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease. The Caretaker drew inspiration from research on Alzheimer’s patients retrieving their memories upon hearing music from the past. Seal’s painting series visually articulates the gradual loss of perception of the external world and the emergence of a new reality through this transformative process. Each painting in the series portrays a distinct subject; however, a form resembling a human head and an object looking like an architectural space persist throughout. These recurring motifs symbolize an endeavor to reclaim the original self while only leading to more abstraction and ambivalence; someone who struggles to remember but the memories remain fragmentaryーundergoing a cognitive loss. FEATURING ELEVEN COMMISSIONED WORKS FROM IVAN SEAL: A.ZCHRL:ONE B.ZCHRL:TWO C.ZCHRL:THREE D.ZCHRL:FOUR E.ZCHRL:FIVE AN ANGEL DELETES THE MEMORIES OUT OF THE TRASH UNDER THE DREAMED ECHO ABOVE THE UNCOMFORTABLE VACUUM F.ZCHRL:FIVE G.ZCHRL:FOUR H.ZCHRL:THREE I.ZCHRL:TWO J.ZCHRL:ONE EVERYWHERE AT THE END OF AN EMPTY BLISS (FULL VERSION): 00:00 - Track 1 01:45 - Track 2 05:07 - Track 3 06:58 - Track 4 09:34 - Track 5 12:07 - Track 6 13:59 - Track 7 18:05 - Track 8 22:22 - Track 9 26:09 - Track 10 33:10 - Track 11