Leyland Kirby - Eager to Tear Apart the Stars (History Always Favours The Winners, 2011)

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James Leyland Kirby is an artist who has remained undoubtedly prolific throughout his career, from his early origins as V/Vm in the mid-'90s, to his ongoing, and currently most acclaimed project, The Caretaker. Where V/Vm was a noise-colliding mad-scientist hybrid of experimental sounds and oddball remixes, The Caretaker is a ballroom-inspired affair of pre-war parlour jazz seen through modern eyes; where once cheerful and optimistic sounds filled the air, haunting and cerebral memories reside, fallen victim to time. Most recently Kirby has begun to release music under his own name, starting with 2009's Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was; a three-part juggernaut of fascinatingly clear-headed, pastoral scores of ambient. This work is somewhat collateral to The Caretaker, as both can evoke strong emotional qualities through their subtle conceptual themes of time and memory. Although where The Caretaker's dark and time regressive recordings utilize vinyl noise to capture lost memories, Leyland Kirby's drowsy orchestrations of emotional unease and underlying drone eject a stark contrast between merciless beauty, and unforgiving hostility.

That contrast is essentially the key to understanding Eager To Tear Apart The Stars. It's interesting to note how similar its cover art is to The Caretaker's An Empty Bliss Beyond This World; like they should been seen as companion pieces. Although this is hard to believe, because Tear Apart the Stars is diverse in an entirely different way. Its six recordings each manage to embrace a varying set of tones, moods, and instruments. The album opens with "The Arrow of Time", striking deeply embedded piano keys that harrow through a distressing climate, while whimsical drones softly sweep away the damp debris. It's a deceiving first impression of the resulting elegance that follows it. "This Is the Story of Paradise Lost" drowns the opening affliction in a stream of gorgeous piano reflections, escorted by frail murmurs that vaporize the liquid successions. That seemingly unrestrained delicacy is guided by a soft haze of static electricity, subtly meandering in the distance.

Not only is there a clear contrast from song to song, but also within songs themselves. This is best noted on "They Are All Dead, There Are No Skip At All", where childlike vibraphones carry an innocent melody through a body of arresting harps, as meteor-encompassed static plunges to the ground, resonating an almost forceful contrast between opposing moods. That opposition can lead to questioning the very purpose of the song, unaware if it's supposed to be uplifting, or disheartening. Although precisely what that opposition does to is it creates a consistent harmony between differing moods; like an unsettling swan-song. This may sound a little far-fetched, but even the title of the song suggests this. "They Are All Dead", a blatant and depressing phrase joined by, "There Are No Skip At All", which could be a deliberate grammar mistake to evoke the childlike innocence of its instrumentation.

"We are weighed down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of time. And there are but two means of escaping this nightmare: pleasure and work. Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose." - Charles Baudelaire. That quote can bring a great understanding to Eager to Tear Apart the Stars. There are those who will listen to it, and hear pretty, pleasurable background ambient music. And there are those who will listen to it, and hear mind-altering sonic perceptions of their own lives, and will become interested in working to hear all it has to offer. Both are equally acceptable conclusions to come to after listening to Eager to Tear Apart the Stars; it's just a matter of finding out which side you're on.



[Buy Eager to Tear Apart the Stars from History Always Favours Winners]