- (This page covers both The Caretaker and other projects involving James Leyland Kirby, including V/Vm.)
The Caretaker is a long-running project by electronic musician James Leyland Kirby, who also records as V/Vm. His work under the Caretaker moniker has been characterised as exploring memory, nostalgia, and melancholia. Initially the project was inspired by the haunted ballroom scene in the 1980 film 'The Shining', with his first several releases consisting of treated and manipulated samples of '30s ballroom pop recordings.
His works have received critical acclaim in publications such as The Wire and BBC Music, and the project was a favourite of BBC Radio DJ John Peel.
(Read more at Wikipedia.)
Links to Peel
John Peel played numerous tracks from the Caretaker albums 'A Stairway To The Stars' (2002) and 'We'll All Go Riding On A Rainbow' (2003), which also both featured in his monthly Record Box selections for the BBC website, perhaps drawn by their echoes of pre-war discs from his show's Pig's Big 78 slot. While no Caretaker tracks reached the Festive Fifty during the DJ's lifetime, the second decade of the 21st century saw a fresh series of releases and F50 entries on Dandelion Radio yearly charts.
As well as material put out under the Caretaker moniker, Peel also played often disturbing cover versions by James Leyland Kirby under other aliases, notably V/Vm. In 2012, the V/Vm album 'Masters Of The Absurd' (2000) was among the 100 albums by artists beginning with V when details of Peel’s record collection were initially released via TheSpace website. (See Record Collection: V.) The LP was subsequently featured as the "Hidden Gem" for the letter V at the John Peel Archive blog. [1]
Festive Fifty Entries
- 2016 Festive Fifty: Things That Are Beautiful And Transient #37
- 2017 Festive Fifty: A Losing Battle Is Raging #38
Sessions
- None
Other Shows Played
- 2000
- 03 May 2000: Rangefinding (CDS-(Pause) EP) Badmusic
- 2002
The Caretaker — A Stairway to the Stars ( Full Album )
- 28 May 2002: We Cannot Escape The Past (LP – A Stairway To The Stars) V/Vm Test
- 29 May 2002: Cloudy, Since You Went Away (LP – A Stairway To The Stars) V/Vm Test
- 11 June 2002: Malign Forces Of The Occult (Lp - A Stairway To The Stars) V/Vm Test
- 12 June 2002: On The Edge Of Breakdown (Lp - A Stairway To The Stars) V/Vm Test
- 15 June 2002 (BBC World Service): We Cannot Escape The Past (LP - A Stairway To The Stars) V/Vm
- 26 June 2002: Emptiness (LP - A Stairway To The Stars) V/Vm Test
- 03 July 2002: Cloudy, Since You Went Away (LP - A Stairway To The Stars) V/Vm Test
- 25 July 2002: Date With An Angel (LP - A Stairway To The Stars) V/Vm Test
- 2003
- 02 September 2003: I Saw Your Face In A Dream (LP- We'll All Go Riding On A Rainbow) V/Vm
- 11 September 2003: That Old Feeling (LP - We'll All Go Riding On A Rainbow) V/Vm Test
- 15 October 2003: The Weeping Dancefloor (LP - We'll All Go Riding On A Rainbow) V/Vm Test
- 03 December 2003: And The Bands Played On (LP - We'll All Go Riding On A Rainbow) V/Vm Test
- V/Vm
Vm – The Lady In Red (Is Dancing With Meat)
- 07 June 2001: Love Will Tear Us Apart (7") white label (JP: "You can admire that intellectually but you have to say that regular exposure to it would kind of... it's the sound of nausea really isn't it? It's a very strange and unnerving sound. The sound of food poisoning perhaps.")
- 30 April 2003: The Lady in Red (LP - Sick Love) Offal
- May 2003 (FSK): The Lady In Red (Is Dancing With Meat) (CD - Sick-Love) V/Vm Test
- 14 December 2004 (Rob Da Bank): Jack O Diamonds (CDR) white label
- Rasherford & Binson
- 28 September 1999: Solid (2xCD - AuralOffalWaffleTenPintsOfBitterAndABagOfPorkScratchings: 52 Fast Moving Tracks) V/Vm Test
- Billy Ray Cyrix
- 15 October 2003: The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (Mini CD - Achy Breaky Hard Drive) V/Vm Test (JP: "Sounded more like 'Rag Mama Rag' to me, but then what do I know?")
