History Always Favours The Winners 黑胶唱片和CD

Review: Jim Kirby's History Always Favours The Winners is kind of like our holy grail when it comes to contemporary drone and noise. Both the artist and the label have provided the landscape with a strange and compelling pulse of sonics, often found floating hither and dither, filtered through beautifully cavernous machine glitch. Kirby returns under his moniker, The Caretaker, coming through with the fourth volume of Everywhere At The End Of Time. As you can imagine, this isn't the easiest music to compress into words, particularly because of its characteristically off-kilter arrangement and general layout. However, if you do want something that will make you think, this is for you. An oddball trip down loop mountain.

Review: Jim Kirby's music under The Caretaker alias has always been vast, bottomless pit of horror psychedelia for fans of all things Lynch-like. Much like the movies of the great cinema director, Kirby's weird and wonderful blends of samples are as inquisitive as they are tenebrous, forever searching for that additional bit of grit amidst the lines. This is the third chapter of the Everywhere At The End Of Time series, out through his excellent History Always Favours The Winners imprint. The breadth of these 16 awkward loops is made up of eerie wind instruments, sounding all too similar to those featuring at the end of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, when Jack Nicholson's character ominously appears in the infamous painting. The Caretaker pushes those samples to their limits, stopping and starting, slowing up and slowing down magnificently, taking on a life of their own. One per customer, so be quick!

Review: 'Patience (After Sebald)' is a film essay about the intersection of landscape, art, history, life and loss. Grant Gee is behind the documentary about German writer WG Sebald while The Caretaker scored the soundtrack which was first released back in 2012. The source material for the record came from Franz Schubert's 1827 piece 'Winterreise' and it was then transformed via the studio into a dust-caked haze of keys, odd loops and de-pitched vocals. Things drift into and out of earshot as you listen and get ever more absorbed by the wonderful curiousness of it all.

Review: Leyland Kirby has been doing his thing since the mid-90's. Having released almost all of his music on his own History Always Favours The Winners, we can safely say that he's a self-made man. This time, he comes through with the third chapter of the Intrigue & Stuff series, a corner of his label which has been dedicated to more synth-led concoctions of intricate experimentalism. In short, Kirby places electro, ambient, noise and power electronics into a blender and hits frappe! There's a genuine sense of conceptualism throughout, with "The Start Of Wars & The End Of Eras" opening the works with odd blends of FX-heavy synths, which then moves onto more beat-oriented pieces such as "Lie Low, Pick Your Moment" and the quasi-club friendly "The Watcher & The Watched" - our favourite moment in this diverse collection of sounds. Class.

Review: Leyland Kirby's History Always Favours The Winners imprint has been on fire recently, with his Intrigue & Stuff series showcasing the man's diversity and originality behind a wall of synthesizers. His 8th LP, however, could be his most creative moment yet, where hollow drones drop into murky FX tricks and cavernous whirlpools of feedback. The work is both sinister and enlightening, where Kirby manages to create a true aura. To us, the most powerful parts are in "Marple Libradome '91", where a spiritual flux of noise rushes in like a ray of sunlight, and "Smithy & Dave The Rave" - an oddly musical and harmonic avalanche of stripped electronics. A fine work.

Review: Bleaklow, Leyland James Kirby's second album under The Stranger alias was originally released back in 2008 through his own V/VM imprint and promptly sold out. As the cult of Kirby has grown over the ensuing years, this reissue courtesy of the artist's more recent label endeavour, History Always Favors The Winners, offers a timely chance to reappraise the album. Newcomers to Bleaklow will find much to soak up in the jaded soundscapes and drone heavy passages that make up the album. Our favourite moments include the sinister tones on "Exhumation", the cavernous beats and synths of "Indefinite Ridge", and the semi-techno structure of "Inverted Burial". Shit hot.