All of the music mentioned in this album belongs to Leyland “The Caretaker” Kirby. The album covers shown belong to Ivan Seal. Usage of these materials is permitted under fair use.
“Everywhere at the end of time” was a series exploring dementia, its advancement and its totality.” - Leyland Kirby
Everywhere At The End Of Time is a musical project by Leyland Kirby (better known by his online alias, “The Caretaker”) that depicts the progression of dementia in auditory form. The Caretaker has done many ambient musical projects, but this is by far his most popular. It is considered by some to be one of the greatest musical projects ever created, letting people experience the sobering effects of a disease that they may never have. Everything, from the selection of samples, levels of distortion, names of songs, and replication of real phenomena that people with dementia experience, let you realistically feel the deterioration of your prized memories.
While I have listened to parts of the album before, I have never listened to the full, six-and-a-half-hour-long project ever, until now. Over six days, I listened to Everywhere At The End Of Time in its entirety. The project contains six stages, each of which slowly distorts into confusion and eventually blankness. These are my progression of thoughts throughout.
Stage One
“Here we experience the first signs of memory loss. This stage is most like a beautiful daydream. The glory of old age and recollection. The last of the great days.” -Leyland Kirby
Length: 40 minutes
Favorite Part: It’s Just a Burning Memory
Stage One is a collection of modified ballroom instrumentals, like what elderly people today would have listened to in their younger days. The music is slowed down, slightly distorted, and scratchier than their original songs, but still has a fully cohesive melody. The songs themselves are sentimental, almost like the person is reminiscing about their past. The first and most famous song, “It’s Just a Burning Memory,” is an altered version of “Heartaches” by 1930s musician Al Bowlly.
The titles of these songs appear to hold a lot of meaning to the person, using a romantic diction. This leads me to believe that the person is living out their days with their partner. The person seems to accept the fact that their life will eventually come to an end but, for now, they can continue to live their content, predictable lives. The titles add to this theory. As an example, here are a few of them;
Adding to the symbolism in this part, the album cover of this stage looks like a rolled-up newspaper. This could mean a lot of things, but I believe that what it is supposed to symbolize is that this person has access to their memories (represented by the newspaper) but it takes more mental effort to “unravel the newspaper” or access said memories.
This stage represents growing older for many people, not just those with dementia. Life may become more monotonous, represented by the repeating melodies in the songs. The things in the songs that do stand out are little imperfections such as scratches, static, or a quick, unexpected deviation in the song before getting right back on track. This could represent mild forgetfulness, which is to be expected in an elderly person. The switch from romance to mild frustration (but not concern) with the fact that memory isn’t as good as it used to be, changes in the song “Quiet Internal Rebellions”
What’s my son’s birthday again?
Of course, it's on the 24th. Silly me.
Where’s Betty? I can’t find her.
Oh, that's right, she’s at the store right now.
Everything is fine, I’m simply growing older and getting a little more forgetful.
Everything is fine.
Stage Two
“The second stage is the self-realization and awareness that something is wrong with a refusal to accept that. More effort is made to remember so memories can be more long form with a little more deterioration in quality. The overall personal mood is generally lower than the first stage and at a point before confusion starts setting in.” -Leyland Kirby
Length: 40 minutes
Favorite Part: Denial Unravelling
Stage Two’s main characteristic is the off-putting songs within it. The songs are sad, but ethereal, open, and majestic in the background. Primarily, the mood that these songs give is frustration, depression, denial, and a sort of uneasiness. This person trying to remember their memories within, creating mental fog throughout the stage creates an empty and unnerving mood. This unnerving feeling is most evident in the song “Glimpses of Hope in Trying Times.”
The songs in this stage have more discrepancies, to the point where the music becomes obviously eerie and distorted. It sounds like an old, worn-out record, which could also be used to represent the mental clarity of this individual. There are out-of-tune parts, off-timings, and a strange but recognizable background. It can still be considered music, but just barely, just how this person’s mental state is on the cusp of being normal and not.
The album cover of this stage has a lot to unpack. It’s less easy to tell what this object is than in the previous stage, but it is still quite obviously a vase with four flowers in it. The flowers are slightly wilted and dying. The flowers could represent this person's love for their partner, and how their relationship is dying due to dementia. This theory is backed by the two, faceless human-like figures on the side of the vase (the one on the left resembles a man, and the one on the right resembles a woman).
The titles of this stage are also more depressing and give a sense of indifference and loss of courage, or other negative or hopeless sentiments that relate to this person's memory loss. For example…
This person can’t seem to understand how they feel about their memory loss, or even whether to recognize it or not. This contrast is especially apparent in the different moods of the songs. The motifs in these songs stay the same for some of the songs, but some new ones are also added throughout this stage. These novel musical elements seem to express more extreme emotions rather than love and satisfaction.
There isn’t anything wrong.
This is totally normal.
Is it normal?
Stage Three
“Here we are presented with some of the last coherent memories before confusion fully rolls in and the gray mists form and fade away. The finest moments have been remembered, the musical flow in places is more confused and tangled. As we progress some singular memories become more disturbed, isolated, broken, and distant. These are the last embers of awareness before we enter the post-awareness stages.” -Leyland Kirby
Length: 50 minutes
Favorite Part: Long Term Dusk Glimpses
Here, the music becomes much more distorted. The melodies of the song are still there, but they are off-putting. The music retains little composure, and the music is being taken over by the fog in the background. Songs suddenly end, notes are frequently off-beat and out-of-tune, and the songs have disintegrated to the point where they are starkly different from the original.
This is the scariest part for me since it is the beginning of the end. Even the most profound memories are heavily distorted. At this point, I believe they can’t maintain a relationship with their partner due to their disease, thus the name “And Heart Breaks” for one of the songs. A sense of loneliness is conveyed as a result.
This is the first stage where I’d feel very strange if I heard it with no context. Some of the songs have coherent melodies and could be considered avant-garde or ambient music, but some of the songs are just repeating arpeggios that are heavily distorted. Of course, when you are experiencing dementia, there are going to be good and bad days, which I think this stage is supposed to represent. Some songs in this stage are similar to those in Stage Four, but others are so coherent that they are closer to Stage Two or even Stage One (such as my favorite song in the album, Long Term Dusk Glimpses). There is more monotony in the melodies, but distortion is much greater and comes in many more ways such as repetition, confusing melodies, dampening, and songs getting cut off. This stage is often scary, but it is my favorite of all the six stages since it is the transition from lucidity to post-awareness.
The titles of the songs have lost some of their romance or depression, and now seem to be more confused, worried, or slurred. The titles seem to be more sad, even though the music isn’t as sad as Stage Two. I think this has to do with the fact that the people around the person experiencing dementia are now grieving the loss of someone who is still alive. Loved ones know they will never be the same. The titles here often represent the viewpoint of others, not the person. Additionally, the titles that do represent the viewpoint of the person experiencing dementia give a more of a lost, lonely, or uncontrollable mood. The titles are incoherent and are sometimes just fragmented words of sentences. Here are some examples;
The best way I can describe the emotion of these songs, however strange it is, is nautical. I can imagine the titles of these songs being played on a broken submarine plunging into the depths with no return. The world slowly turns darker before sinking into the abyss.
At the end of this stage, we experience the first form of post-awareness. In the part “Aching Cavern Without Lucidity,” there is only white noise with some faint remnants of a melody in the background.
The album cover here is the first one where it is not immediately recognizable what the figure is. It looks to be a tree, but it is so distorted, like the memories of the person, that it's hard to recognize what it is. I think it also could be the entangled neurons in this person's brain. It feels confused and without any sort of structure like the previous stages.
What's happening?
Why is she gone…
What’s her name?
Who…?
…
Stage Four
“Post-Awareness Stage Four is where serenity and the ability to recall singular memories gives way to confusions and horror. It's the beginning of an eventual process where all memories begin to become more fluid through entanglements, repetition and rupture.” -Leyland Kirby
Duration: 1.5 hours
Favorite part: Temporary Bliss State
The music has now deformed into an alarming assortment of noises. There is no coherent melody, and the sounds are just unnervingly morphed together. Just as some coherence could be held on to for more than five seconds, it slips away among distortion of the melodies and the foggy background. None of the songs are music anymore, it just sounds like many broken records stacked upon each other.
Just as Stage Three sounded nautical, Stage Four sounds chilling. At this point, you can barely remember what the original music sounded like, and it seems as though the whole world is crumbling. The more this person tries to remember the melodies, the more it gets confused and tangled. This person can no longer remember the most important things, and the once loving emotions have morphed into an empty void of pain. The sounds of despair, the effort to pick out some kind of a melody but ultimately failing, and the once passive background clouds turning stormy and aggressive, categorize this stage.
The song titles in this stage provide a stark difference from the previous stages. The titles no longer sound emotional, rather, they sound cold and empty with little variation. Three of the four parts are called “Stage Four Post Awareness Confusions,” and the other is called “Temporary Bliss State.” There is zero emotion behind these names as there was in the past.
The album cover of this part looks to be a woman, but the colors and precise features have been erased. I assume that this woman is the love of this person’s life, and they have disintegrated so far into isolation and confusion that they can’t remember the most important person to them anymore. The shape of the person looks vaguely like the famous painting, “Girl with a Pearl Earring.”
According to art and media professor Martin Irvine, “To me personally, I regard pearls as a sign of quiet and calm.”
Having what seems to be this image so heavily distorted, may represent the chaotic and cataclysmic downfall of the patient.
Then, starting at around the two-hour 46-minute mark, we start the brief “mini-stage” coined as the “Hell Sirens.” The Hell Sirens begin with what sounds like several distorted claps of thunder with intense organ music playing in the background, the first real melody we’ve heard in a while. Then, for around 20 seconds, we hear a low-pitched siren which is one of the most frightening things I have heard.
Though I am not certain, I believe the Hell Sirens are supposed to represent the absolute low of confusion, a cry out for help, and the ability to grasp onto a memory or recognize something. The realization that the personality, memories, and loved ones have all faded, causes an outrage of depressed fury.
Shortly after the Hell Sirens, the “Temporary Bliss State” begins. In this part, the melodies sound like a xylophone or mbira. They are distorted, but not nearly as heavily as the previous two stages. The fog in the background is also reduced. The part is different based on how you interpret it. It could sound happy, creepy, confused, or a combination of all three. This part is a break from the normal distortion, but it feels like it is a premonition for something much, much worse.
And just as you start to get comfortable in the bliss state, the confusions begin again and return you to the emptiness and pain of forgotten memories.
…
Stage Five
“Post-Awareness Stage 5 confusions and horror. More extreme entanglements, repetition, and rupture can give way to calmer moments. The unfamiliar may sound and feel familiar. Time is often spent only in the moment leading to isolation.” -Leyland Kirby
Length: 1.5 hours
Favorite part: Stage 5 Advanced Plaque Entanglements (K1)
I thought Stage Four was bad, the loss of memory couldn’t get any worse from here, right? Wrong.
I can no longer pick out any melodies, it is just painful, cacophonous notes amid a storm of distortion. Scratches, what sounds like screams, static, and a fog-like background constitute this horror of the unknown. There are what sounds like the voice of a human (in an entirely instrumental project), but they are too distorted to pick out what they are saying. Something is wrong, but the patient is too confused to know what it is. The pure fear in the collapsing prison of this person’s mind.
Hell. This is what hell sounds like. In the midst of the burning flames is a tangled mess of sounds that you can’t break free from, terrorizing every one of your living, breathing seconds.
But then, out of nowhere, a moment of clarity returns. Despite sounding scratchy, there’s a melody. You can hear it, you can feel it. Finally! You seem to recognize something that’s around you. Unfortunately, this moment of normalcy only lasts for around fifteen seconds, and it is the most tragic fifteen seconds of the entire piece. The gift of thinking, something that was always available to this person, has been teased in front of them before being snatched away again.
This phenomenon in real dementia patients is called “paradoxical lucidity,” and is a moment of unexpected mental clarity in the midst of severe dementia (Penn Memory Center). What is most heartbreaking about this is that people who have dementia and have forgotten how to speak can briefly communicate with other people during this moment of lucidity.
“I’m scared. I want you to come with me.” -Dementia patient Sarah to her husband.
This stage has an aura of emptiness and confusion. In these parts, it is primarily abrasive static among faint, altered notes. The claps of thunder and hell sirens also consistently return during this stage. The mind has deteriorated so much that it can't be confused. These sounds are lonely and a plunge into the depths of what is a blank but conscious mind.
Similar to Stage Four, the titles in this stage lack emotion and seem to be a hollow description of what our patient is experiencing. Additionally, the titles of the first two parts are repeated, similar to Stage Four. The titles are as follows;
The album cover of this stage is the first one where I can’t pick out what it is. For the rest of the album covers, there seems to be something that is somewhat recognizable. But here, it looks like a random assortment of figures that I can’t quite put together, similar to how this person is trying to find some way to put the vague memories they have together, but ultimately coming up with an incoherent mess. The best guess I have on what this figure is supposed to be is a Victorian-era woman walking up a flight of stairs, but I’m almost certain it is something else, or perhaps nothing at all.
This is the stage where confusion transitions into nothingness. At the beginning of this stage, there is too much going on. By the end, there is barely anything other than distorted static with a faint note here or there.
…
I need help. What is happening?
…
…
Stage Six
“Post-Awareness Stage 6 is without description.” -Leyland Kirby
Length: 1.5 hours
Favorite part: Place in the World Fades Away
In this stage, there no longer is any confusion, just an empty void of a mind that can’t remember the most important things. Their profession, their happiest moments, their children, their loving partner, and even their personality. It’s all washed away by dementia. But what is a human whose mind is empty? In this auditory representation, it’s simply different types of static with a seraphic background and a distant note in the background every couple of minutes. Memory loss is a special kind of frightening, where you can go from a lively individual just trying to enjoy life like the rest of us, to being a husk of a human in just a few years. In this last stage, the patient is dead mentally but has to face the physical torment of existence before they enter the afterlife.
I feel as though this phenomenon is best represented by the title of the first part, “A Confusion so Thick You Forget Forgetting.”
Speaking of titles, they are drastically different from the ones in Stage Four and Stage Five. They don’t sound emotionless and empty, they sound defeated and depressed, similar to Stage Two. Here are the other three titles in the project.
This stage feels soberingly blank and empty, which relates to the album cover, an empty canvas in a gray background. Where there was once lively art, there is now just the bones, just as how there was once a mind, and now there is just a breathing corpse. The album cover perfectly represents the eerie distress that this person is in.
In this final stage, I looked around my room, saw my hands, and felt my body, and couldn’t, for the life of me, remember what that first melody sounded like.
In the final part, “Place in the World Fades Away,” the background turns from angry and sharp to more relaxed. The ambient fog that once plagued the patient now has encapsulated their mind, almost like a blanket, keeping you oblivious to all the anguish and pain. In the final minutes, hasty footsteps are followed by opera music, with a sorrowful and conclusive emotion. You are no longer trapped in your mind, you are in the moment, experiencing terminal lucidity, a phenomenon that some dementia patients experience at the end of their life when mental clarity is regained for a short period.
I… I know you
I love you…
Betty?
This is the end for me, please remember me fondly and tell the kids I love them with all of my heart…
I’ll see you soon, God will take care of you until then…
Goodbye.
…
Then, a minute of silence before the project ends to commemorate this person's life.
My Thoughts
Everywhere at the End of Time is a very well-executed avant-garde project. Each one of the stages is uniquely different and the incremental distortion made the experience seem so much more realistic. What makes this project unique is it takes a disease that many of us will never experience and puts it into a form that we can all understand. For many of us, music is important, and having it slowly distort into nothingness just like this person’s important memories, is a great way to replicate this disease.
Another thing that makes this album great is the fact that there are real phenomena represented within the music, both physical and emotional. For example, Stage Two included a sense of melancholia. Stage Five included Paradoxical Lucidity, and Stage Six had a representation of Terminal Lucidity. It’s clear that “The Caretaker” took his time to understand the process of dementia. Along with these big phenomena, I love the fact that specific emotions are so thoroughly conveyed throughout the pieces.
“Bewildered” is a word that is used throughout the entire lucid stages of the project. The usage of the word bewildered can describe the state of being of the person. In Stage One, one of the song titles is “Slightly Bewildered,” representing the mild progression of dementia at this point. Then, in Stage Three, one of the song titles is “Internal Bewildered World,” signifying isolation and confusion before the post-awareness stages.
Even after all of my analysis, I am still perplexed about a couple of things. The album cover for Stage Three is something that I haven’t fully deciphered. And at Stage Three, it seems as though the memories are distorted but not gone, but the album cover doesn’t seem to reflect the stage that it is actually in. Strangely, Stage Four’s album cover actually seems to be less abstract than Stage Three, even when the audio is generally much more confused in Stage Four.
Additionally, the “Hell Sirens” is another thing that I haven’t figured out. What do they mean? Is it a teaser for the post-mortem transition? Is it the absolute low and a cry for help? If you have a theory, I’d love it if you could post it in the comments below.
Listening to this filled me with empathy for those who have this terrible, incurable disease. Arthritis runs in my family but dementia doesn’t, and after listening to this album, I’m so happy that I will give up my physical capacity rather than my mental capacity when I grow older.
More than anything, this album is emotional in a way that is hard to put into words. People with dementia have to watch their prized memories slowly collapse in front of them, which is one of the most mentally painful things I can fathom. Falling deeper and deeper into despair as the world becomes foreign. In other words, it’s just a burning memory.
Thanks for writing this thoughtful analysis of Kirby's “The Caretaker.” I'm surprised how music without lyrics can be so frightening and even horrific and I loved your interpretation of the album art, particularly the connection between a tree and neurons. There are so many evocative ideas throughout your review.
I also love the narratives that you put at the end of each section. They were so fitting to the music that I thought Kirby had written them. But I can't find any words anywhere in the piece (admittedly, I haven't listened for the full 6.5 hours!) so they must be your interpretation of the words a person with dementia might say.
I would like to learn more about Kirby and why did they took on this unusual project.
There is so much work that you put into the essay and the quality really shows. I'm impressed with your sophisticated analysis and original insights and connections. For me too, this is my favorite piece of yours so far. Amazing work!
Wow. WOW. This piece blew me away, Hugo.
Your insights here reflect not only thoughtful consideration of Kirby's work, but also empathy and compassion for people experiencing dementia. "Everywhere at the End of Time" tries to capture the trauma of dementia using music and visual design. You *added* to the work by describing it in words - beautifully so. Well done.
I wonder about the Hell Sirens. I can imagine dementia being like a bad dream, where irrational, unreal - and terrifying - perceptions take hold. Maybe those perceptions are like traditional nightmares with monsters and chases and such - but maybe it's plainer than that. I know how I feel when I misplaced something and can't find it, or am running late, or have a nagging feeling that I was supposed to do something but it slipped. Multiply that by a hundred - or a thousand - and maybe you've got the Hell Sirens.
Thanks for sharing this amazing piece. I will be thinking about it for a long time to come!