There are a multitude of different forms used to tell stories, but music is one of the most unique. Sounds and noises being used to produce a story is something seemingly impossible and yet it exists. Depending on what the story trying to be told is, it often determines the type of genre the music they produce falls into. However, there’s been one specific genre that’s been hidden in the shadows for a while now. It is called “Caretaker music”, or “Everywhere At The End Of Time” music, and it contains some of the most obscure and bizarre sounds to have ever been produced.
Now, the music is called this because most of it was inspired by the most well known album in this genre, “Everywhere At The End Of Time” by Leyland James Kirby under the name, The Caretaker. This album rose to popularity due to its uniqueness for using preexisting music samples from the 1920s to 1930s to convey the slow decay of a human mind that results from dementia. The decay of the music itself as the album went on represented the patient’s inability to recall memories as the disease slowly worked its way further into their brain. By the end of the album, barely any audible music is heard until the final five minutes where the patient is able to recall some shattered memories for a brief moment in an event known as ‘terminal lucidity’ before dying.
This album’s popularity unsurprisingly resulted in other people wanting in on the success. So, the trend known as EATEOT fan projects rose up and flooded the internet. At first, most were spins of the original album with them mostly consisting of the same formula and subject matter. However, they proved to be just as effective, with albums like “Everywhere In The Beginning Of Nowhere” and “Nowhere At The Millennium Of Space” which dominated the fandom.
From here, the albums began expanding beyond dementia and tackled other diseases such as Insomnia, Rabies, False Memory Syndrome and the Mad Cow Disease. Then came the albums that completely revitalized the formula. “We Are Eternal” by user Sgt Talby, started as a dementia album, but over time developed into an album about depression, addiction and other similar topics. The way the samples were edited was also done much differently compared to other albums. Rather than just having a song play with some static thrown in, or mixing random samples together to create a noise effect, Sgt Talby utilized looping and pitching to morph the songs into their own beat.
The music itself is unsettling to most listeners. Most of these albums start out happy and cheerful before slowly decaying into a never ending nightmare. Of course, there are some exceptions. “Time and Time Again” by Wilhelm Lyons is a collection of blissful tracks to represent a dementia patient’s repeating memories. “Continuous Recurrence Of Expressions” by user Vanpassinby is an incredibly atmospheric album with unworldly sounds throughout. These unique structures result in certain emotional reactions from listeners experiencing them for the first time.
These Caretaker inspired albums have continuously managed to push the boundaries of what was once thought possible of music. To this day, similar groundbreaking albums are still being made to test the limits of how samples can be mixed and the meaning they provide to the album they’re attached to. What used to be nothing more than noise made to represent dementia is now tackling other diseases and depression. This all culminates in the listener’s experience being elevated by sounds never conceived of before. It has created an entirely new genre of music and is not leaving the Caretaker’s residence anytime soon.
