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 THE
CARETAKER
A Stairway To The Stars
2002
CD
V/Vm Test Records. OFFALO7
49:55
UK Distribution: Baked Goods, These
The Caretaker is a V/Vm side project, and A Stairway
To The Stars is derived from salvaged and re-processed 1930s ballroom
music, heard through a warm diamorphine haze, big on nostalgia, heavy
with regret, unbearably painful to listen to. There is a ghostly, muffled
otherworldliness to this recording - and I shall be neither the first
nor the last to find it reminiscent of the ballroom scenes in The Shining,
very possibly its inspiration. What this most reminds me of however is
a drizzly late autumn Tuesday on a dilapidated pier in an unfashionable
English seaside resort, with antiquated music piped at half speed through
the cracked speakers on the deserted promenade, torn pantomime posters
blowing back and forth in the gale force wind, milky tea in a greasy cup,
sodden deck chairs, a few old fossils in caps and overcoats dying of cancer
while they struggle with their umbrellas. The titles of the tracks: 'Consigned
To A Yesterday', 'It's All Forgotten Now', 'We Cannot Escape The Past'
and even 'Each Today Doesn't Lead To A Tomorrow' - say it all. This is
an exceptional recording, painstakingly blended together, lovingly crafted.
It's also just about the most depressing thing I've ever heard. As Jim
Kirby of V/Vm commented four years ago in The Wire:
"It's just getting worse and worse, down a darker and darker path all
the time. Sooner or later people will lose their footing." Doesn't come
much bleaker than this.
STEWART GOTT - 28 June 2002
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