Art Discussion: Everywhere at the End of Time

before we get going I want to talk about the format of this video and how I intend to present it when I started this idea I was initially looking for an endurance test and the artworks of the McCobb subject appealed to me I did very little research on the caretaker the album or the subject matter I was under the impression I was going to be listened to listening to a really long ambient collection made by an amateur music artist trying to be a lot deeper and a little bit more morbid then he's probably prepared to be and I'd get the opportunity to flex my youtube commentary chops and talk about some sick music right about an hour or two into the project I realized I had stumbled upon probably one of the most musically profound experiences I've ever had in my life regrettably the first few stages I was a bit more jovial than I should have been I don't want to remove these initial sections of recordings because they are authentic and they are how I originally first felt when I listened to the project all I ask is that if you've decided to watch the rest of the video and this is a sensitive topic for you please understand I'm not trying to make less of the themes of this beautiful piece of art or dementia I'll have all sources to anything that I feel is appropriate to backing up my opinions or beliefs on the art or on the art and the music in the description below any youtubers I reference and of course the music that we're listening to as you may have noticed I do have my script here this is just because I'm an awful commentator I'm awful at reading or at just talking to keep myself on track with the ideas that I have I've written the script it's not to be disingenuous or because I don't actually feel these things without without a script my my talking sounds like the ramblings of a madman so this is just this is the help of all I hope you can forgive me let's get started if I had a direct family member or friend suffering from dementia this would have profoundly disturbed me I listen to this project three times once one full entire listen through and the other two I was sort of bouncing around important moments in the album important but also without trying to lose the context of why those moments were important the latter of which I felt I felt a much greater weight after understanding one the subject matter of of what the project is about and ultimately knowing where the project ends is a lot it's it's a lot more profound to go back and listen to the beginning once you know where where the project sort of M I feel in a very deep and sad and dark way I've gained an inkling of an idea of what emotion someone would go through being or watching someone slip into and be overcome by dementia thinking analytically the emotions I felt are a direct result of Leland Kirby his creation process on this project his goals were to hide the listener from feeling the process and provide them with the experience which in my opinion he absolutely nails the entire project feels organic like the music is deteriorating the way my mind would naturally as a living being hiding the digital feeling of creation that sometimes can can seep through a project meant to feel this organic I'd like to go through each stage individually with you first showing you my initial reaction as unedited as I possibly can those are madman ramblings Willa I will try my best to edit out because my first listener I didn't script myself at all I just sat there and talked about it and then a more comprehensive commentary after I listen to twice more to really pull the message and the experience that was intended what I feel was intended for us to get from this experience I'm gonna try to use the seven stages of dementia as a vehicle to go through these albums with you because I do think that was the intention of having six but to keep it the naming scheme of everywhere at the end of time of a renaming the medical stages as the album stages technically there are seven stages of dementia and we only have six albums the way I'm going to do it's gonna make sense this is the stage of dementia more than likely hopefully you are in there are no symptoms or memory loss and as such no musical accompaniment I like to think this was on purpose as if Leland Kirby were to say the music you listen to on your way home or at work or just whatever you were listening to previous to this is your stage stage zero [Music] here we experienced the first signs of memory loss this stage is most like a beautiful daydream the glory of old age and recollection the last of the great days so that was stage 1 that was the description it gives with stage 1 [Music] it just sounds like really floaty old music played through a record player so any imperfections I feel like could be explained away by the record player like the vinyl effect you hear the scratches and bumps throughout the whole the whole 40 minutes but uh I mean there were parts where things were like stretching and like strings would be a little bit sharper than you think they should be but I feel like that's normal on a record player so I might be looking like too deep into it but it also said that this is where this is where the memory loss begins so with the intention of the album I think that's where what he was trying to do there but uh nothing nothing incredible like if you were to listen to any random collection of just one-off old 1920s music I feel like any Lawrence Welk esque music I think that's that's what you'd expect to hear very uneventful I feel [Music] here the mind is starting to deteriorate but it's not obvious to you or anyone around you album reflects that the musical ideas are fully formed and complete the only repetition is intentional there are a few distortions cracking and fuzziness but some jerk just forgot to clean the needle on the record player [Music] second stage is the self-realization and awareness that something is wrong with a refusal to accept that more effort is made to remember some memories can be more long form with a little more deterioration in quality the overall personal mood is generally lower than the first stage and at a point before confusion starts setting in so immediately that stage 2 is darker much darker at least it starts really at least for me it was really eerie it sounded like I was just learning of what was happening what was happening to me it starts off with like this this which sounds like a train like a truck but if you put that sound through like a fuzz guitar pedal like a real you'd have to listen to it the through the beginning of stage two it sounds real fuzzy but if the fuzz was like a train sound through a fuzz pedal and it also like these really a be real I think all of the backing tracks instead of sounding like horns or sounding like flutes it's just one ethereal sound that's kind of rising and all the songs end with like this really eerie reverb effect until the next one begins like but whereas before all the songs sort of had an ending they had an end point now they all just kind of and you're not really sure where I suppose I don't know that could be looking looking way too far into it I wanted to say beforehand also just to touch on the original songs the titles were really happy and they sounded happy for the most part this the stage two immediately starts with a song called a losing battle is raging [Music] and it I don't know the rest of the song sort of follow suit like the song I'm surrendering and despair which I'm pretty sure is just away in a manger like the church Christmas song but like cut differently it was weird I felt like I recognized that song it sounds like a way in a manger but jumbled up notes are starting to get held for longer than I feel like they should like it's not a it's no longer like a whole note it's like a whole note and a half and I know it's pretty pretty neat there are parts there are parts of each song where the weirdness will sort of break yeah it'll be normal I'm pretty sure they repeated a song too like a song from the first stage but it was a much much darker here no my conclusion is it's a lot darker it's like free beer there's a lot more emotion I feel it feels a lot more emotional feels a lot more distress difficulty concentrating decreased performance something is wrong you're not remembering how you got where you are you're starting to notice and so does everyone around you the wrecking the record cracking we heard in stage one is at the forefront into a lot of the time it's difficult to focus on much else the music also has taken a much more lethargic and moody tone the musical ideas are still intact and defined though they are becoming more abstract without feeling like they complete naturally and just fade away into the next track [Music] Stage three here we are presented with some of the last coherent memories before confusion fully rolls it in and the gray mists form and fade away finest moments have been remembered the musical flow in place is more confused entangled as we progress some singular memories become more disturbed isolated broken and distant these are the last embers of awareness before we enter the post awareness stages so stage three starts off with a very strong and disorienting reverb it's really hard not to focus on the reverb I guess it's really disorienting like like it's it's just difficult to focus on the music when with that reverb there because it's stacking on top of each other so like a horn I'll play and you'll hear that horn again in that horn again in that horn again but the original song is still going on and there's reverbs of each of those horns so it's just really disorienting like really difficult sort of pieced together the exact melody the it starts off really strong in the beginning but does sort of fade away less oh later into stage three a lot of the songs our ending really abruptly like it's it's really really disturbing for me just because I'm in an office I work at night I'm in an office most of the lights except for the one in this room are off so I'll be working over there on the test bench just playing around and then I'll be listening to this this ambient creepy ambient almost music and then it'll stop they'll cut immediately and we'll jump half like almost halfway into another intro or another songs intro and it's just really jarring like you can I almost you're focusing on the music you almost feel it physically that that cut happening and it's scary you feel like there's a lot of energy now something else has happened and then that song will slowly descend into the it's weird creepy ambient music and then sometimes like a couple times on this on the record it just are a couple times on the stage it just keeps flowing until there's nothing left in other times it'll just cut again abruptly and some other intro of some other song it's really weird I was constantly checking just to see if it was that the same song or was that it cutting to the next song and sometimes it's it's the same song it's really strange it's a really weird feeling there's also this it's it sounds like much like the train with the fuzz pedal at the beginning there's like a it's like it feels like rain and then it fades into fire crackling and then maybe something else and it feels like those sounds are being put through a fuzz pedal so it's really but like rain fire crackles ah no but uh it's starting to feel like those are coming more for it's like that's becoming the focus of the song and the music is in the background like you're not really supposed to be paying attention to music you're supposed to be paying attention to these really weird fuzzy crackly sounds we're definitely starting we were starting to leave what sounds like traditional music towards the end of this stage it's it sounds very much like a creepy eerie ambient like an ambient sound it doesn't feel like a traditional music sound like we started with 1920's 1930's horn big band ensemble music we're very much and range creepy music now oh there's also a lot of there's the song titles in stage 3 the song titles in stage 3 are they're just as like sad or just as I don't really know the word not angsty but like definitely alluding to a say a sad stage there's also a lot of nods to Benjamin alibi lebay alibi lebay obey Benjamin will obey who was a actually Google than but he's like a yeah a guy who study consciousness night but that was cool just uh a lot of nods down here so I wonder if if maybe the person we're supposed to be it maybe the person we're supposed to be watching go through this or feeling go through this as maybe starting to research Benjamin lebay I don't know I just never served a lot of references and I thought it was cool [Music] concentrating is very difficult everyday chores are becoming confusing and you just can't see me to write it's very very hard to tell family that you love them how is this possible your thoughts and actions are ending abruptly and you find yourself in places around people you don't recognize Leland did an incredible job showing the feeling on this opening track with the reverb I had a very hard time thinking about what I was hearing if the music represents my consciousness and the fuzz static cracking represents the disease or the growth of the disease I feel like the reverb and echoes represent the confusion and the lack of focus and deterioration of the character the allusions to Benjamin Labe and his work neuroscience of the free will is very intentionally and ominously on the nose I believe Leland is trying to tell us that the only tasks the character can perform are the ones their brain doesn't need any help to make and they have significantly less control over the world around them they can tie their shoes they can you know unlock their car they can put on their shoes and whatnot but things that require them to think about it like trying to find their way home it's getting more tough post awareness Stage four is where serenity and the ability to recall singular memories gives way to confusions and horror it's at the beginning of an eventual process where all memories begin to become more fluid through entanglements repetition and rupture so there's no longer any songs any individual songs so I think I'm just got to talk about each one each individual section of the stage or sorta I guess because the the first two stages are called post Awareness confusions one two they're not even numbered on the I guess they are kind of number this G 1 and H 1 but they're both pretty similar [Music] but it's it's not hard to make out the music [Music] that it's trying to show me Jesus is gonna be tough I have a hard enough time explaining what I'm thinking of without it being such an abstract piece of art trying to explain how I'm feeling about such an abstract piece of art it's not hard to make out the music you can still very much hear it but it's it sounds like like if there's a record player it sounds like you're in a cave with a record player and 20 feet in front of the record player is a radio that's just blaring static and it's slowly shifting in between static channels and then you're three feet in front of the radio so it if if the static quiets down for just a minute then you can clearly hear the music 20 feet away but uh so it's the music hasn't stopped it's still going but there's just this awful fuzzy static and there's no more there's no more it doesn't sound like a train or doesn't sound like a rain or or fire crackling that's been put through a pedal anymore it sounds like radio static it's a huge huge development there a lot has changed let's see I made a couple notes just because it I didn't want to have a script but there's a lot to go into now as the songs are turning is that each individual track is becoming 20 30 minutes long so yeah the first to the first to post awareness confusions are pretty similar though so the song will play this motif or play this rhythm or melody but it'll it jumps them up and splits them in between areas and it doesn't feel like you're getting past this motif or past this musical idea you're kind of just skipping through them skipping through them without any sort of order and then you stop and you skip through them again and then you stop and it's the same and as soon as you feel like the song is progressing you're gonna get farther you're gonna get further down the line with this idea it the whole thing dissolves back into fuzz and static and just a mess I feel like if if I'm trying to be getting anything if I'm trying to read into it really hard or I'm decode it I feel like what I'm trying what I'm being told is that the person I'm the person I'm I feel like in this stage I'm trying really hard to remember like that's the character I'm being told to play right now someone's really trying hard to remember what's happening like trying to remember the music but it's so hard and it's not clear and then as soon as I stop trying everything goes away it's just static with in a cave is what it sounds like they're in their extreme bursts of very clear like OneNote song so you try really hard to remember there's a quick fanfare for two or three seconds and then it's gone third section of that stage is called temporary bliss it's called temporary bliss and it is not little the farthest thing from being blissful it's the same staticky radio sound but it is is this like music box it's playing I'm skipping through like you'll hear the music box and then it sort of gets overwhelmed with this ethereal choir sound and then the music box will fade back in but through the whole through the whole track here you're trying to hear it through this radio static and then then it switches back to an awareness confusions for which is there three which is the fourth and last track on that stage and this one gets a lot darker like the first two it felt like I was really trying to hear this music like I was I was a character trying to find this music in my head it was really cloudy and this one there's a lot less music it's a lot more radio static and sometimes the musical fade in and out like it did on the first two but other times there it's like a there's a person screaming that's fading out like a like a Doppler effect person that's screaming and there's also this fuzzy like a like a gone that's been through a fuzz pedal kind of now we're usually if you hear the person screaming than the fuzzy gone we'll hit a couple times like a guy really whale and I'm gone or something it's pretty it's this one got really weird like the other couple like I could identify with like I could really feel the emotions I was meant to feel like if I was supposed to feel sad or angry or frustrated the music the choice the song so he's really reflected that like I felt happy I felt sad I felt you know I felt what the what the artist wanted me to feel here I feel probably what the artist wants me to feel but it's it's very confused I don't understand maybe that's just a thing with dementia I don't know I don't know if this artist I'll do a little research afterwards I don't know if this artist knows someone who has suffered from dementia and that was the aim spur I'm sure that's the inspiration for the song maybe it's just something he cares passionately about there's nothing to identify with this it's very different we're on the stage five minutes I really don't know what to expect from stage 5 because stage 4 was such a departure from anything I could have recognized let's see let's get into it I think [Music] frustration anger and fear sometimes we aren't sure why other times we're thrust into these feelings people around us ask for information we don't understand questions full of words we don't recognize each for is very overwhelming and I think we're being shown this character really struggle with who they are they are still aware of their surroundings but they know there are vital pieces of information in context that are missing the fuzz has completely taken over and it's starting to create its own patterns while musical ideas are completely jumbled and repeat randomly almost like we're stuck on very simple thoughts even when there is a lull in the nonsensical sounds and we have a moment of recognition it's distorted in a way where it's hard to tell if it's the same motifs we've heard before post awareness Stage five confusions and horror more extreme entanglements repetition and rupture can give way to calmer moments the unfamiliar may sound familiar time is often spent only in the moment leading to isolation I feel like stage 5 had the most change like the most I feel like stage 5 was the most dynamic over it's staged like I feel like a lot change within stage 5 the fuzzy sound the fuzzy static sound got very sharp like if you could put it into Photoshop and raise the sharpness of it as an image it would be deep-fried it was super sharp like it sounded like wet like if you had a bucket of water and you poured it onto wet grass like that sound about continuous and you like just turn the gain way up a lot in the first the first section called advanced Planck advant advanced black enlargements a lot of the music I don't feel like was the music we've listening to it hasn't been the same ballroom ensemble big-band music a lot of it where it's been like tribal drums it's been someone on the radio talking a lot of like non brass like natural sounding horns like Lord of the Rings go horns there were brass horns in there too though but in the second plank enlargement section the background music is a lot more cohesive like it's like we're back in that cave with the radio in front of us and the record player much farther behind us there much farther away from us but it sounds like the musical ideas that we're hearing in the background aren't connected with one another like we hear the the horns from one song and the flute from another and the in the singing from another song like they don't feel like it's one song anymore that we're hearing it behind all this static and also something I noticed is in the fuzz there's been like a pattern like the train or the rain or the crackling fire but how those patterns are starting to get broken up by more fuzz like the the less violent fuzz is coming in and sort of dissolving the sharp fuzz making it so not even not even that sort of has a beat or a rhythm to it anymore in synapse retro Genesis it's a lot closer to an ambient song of like an electronic ambien song with like a pulse surging synth of melody it was really a really strange to come to that sound after listening to radio static drowned music or drowned noise for so long it almost felt like it was really strange if we just going back to something that could be considered more music than experience but that didn't last too long after eight minutes of that ambient atmosphere it sort of it was dissolved away again by a pretty violent and very active moving around radio static buzz sound and that song sort of ended more like sort of slowly developed into something more like the ballroom music but still with different identities different musical identities you know that one was really strange sign-ups retro Genesis was a wild one time separation into isolation the buzz the static on the static there sounded like it was screaming while he was very violent very sharp angry fuzz he brought back the brass horns like we could hear the brass horns again but they almost melt it into the like a train passing you sound the musical ideas are pretty clear along with the fuzz but the musical idea is hardly get another get more than a second or two to really happen before it's interrupted by fuzz and then repeated and it's repeated ad nauseam until it's like repeating and repeating and repeating until they give up the character that we're following gives up and it tries a new idea and then it barely is a second before it's interrupted repeats interrupted repeats and that goes on for a long time until it gets repeated and repeated until it's interrupted by either louder fuzz or this eerie bout of like silence for like two seconds and then towards the end of this whole stage it really fades strangely into like nothing fades into almost silence with minimal static like there it's an obscene amount of static but very small amount of static at the end compared to what we've been listening to so far field would be disingenuous to keep up with the poetry acting junk from here on out having only experienced this this mental catastrophe from behind the second-hand I wouldn't feel right trying to represent it in the first hand but we will keep pushing forward into Stage five and six six and how I interpreted them analytically and emotionally I just wanted to make it clear that uh from here on out I I don't know how to feel the fuzz is more distorted than it has been yet on Stage five it's completely taken over again this time however there the recognizable sounds and tones can only be heard for a fraction of a second leading to wailing or swelling instead of any kind of musical idea with that beat with that being said there are a few exceptions where we can faintly hear fading melody hiding behind all the static the idea that shocked me the most here was the inclusion of genres of music we really haven't heard here before and those very unfamiliar melodies and sounds and musical ideas are the most recognizable pieces of stage five and it's it's really jarring just being almost a complete genre shift almost like this person's entire mentality has changed I believe what Leland is trying to have us experience is the transition from someone who can only live in the moment whose diseases almost destroyed everything that has made their experience on this planet unique into a person who's officially lost all that and whose experiences now are new and frightening ly foreign all the time Stage five starts a seemingly random assortment of sound similar to what to which we left off on stage four and slowly devolves into the middle section of the record where there's significantly less activity the static is repeating itself still as if implying we aren't getting what we don't understand wrong I also think the reverb in this section quits representing the confusion it did earlier and begins to take on the feeling of hollowness and loneliness arriving at the end and by the finish of the final section it's pretty clear as the static and random sound wind down that there's very little coherent and meaningful thought left host awareness stage six is without description so I'll whack a confusion so thick you forget your forgetting that's the first 20-minute track and it really isn't anything too incredibly musical about it we're just sort of back to the very low [Music] dulling amount of fuzz it's not the super distorted or anything he's just subtle takes over everything the song that's behind it is so stretched out you really can't hear anything a brutal bliss beyond this empty defeat the fun's here is a lot louder but it kind of sounds like like the fuzz is sort of emulating waves washing on a beach it's not distorted or distracting really it's just providing for the ambience the music now is fast enough where you can hear the note switching and it's sort of it's picked up a bit it's less of one continuous tone you can hear that there's a progression being made song that's playing also is ominous and grandiose feels final kind of sounds like something that would be played during a like a game where the characters finally getting to rest and he's like floating in space or you know pool and there's a part where the ballroom music kind of comes back it's very clear we can hear that ballroom music that we heard in the first stage but it feels flat like that it is changing notes we can hear the music clearly but it doesn't sound like it's leaving a certain note it sounds like they're splitting up the notes very flat they're changing notes but and then that song just sort of ends it just sort of cuts off the next song is the long decline is over and it begins pretty close to how the last song ended it's you know there's the swell the fuzz is beachy almost like waves but we get these horns these horn fanfares and these quick little piano licks and the character is returning like there is you can tell it's different notes that are being played and then towards the middle they it just stops stops and that's quiet and it comes in with like these drums real bass e drums giving you a drumroll then it will stop and then as soon as that reverb is almost over then it'll play quick a little bit of piano and then as soon as that reverb is almost over it'll go back to the drums and then once that reverb is almost over it'll play something else and that sort of continues until the end of that section there's a good ten minutes of that and with each addition it gets just a little bit more complex like things are starting to come back for the character my notes my notes say I am on the edge of my seat the next song is a place in the world fades away and this one two starts pretty similar to hell the previous one it ended it's difficult to really hear individual notes but you do hear it's switch instead of playing the notes that you sort of swell up half way through this one the song again quickly cuts to almost nothing but silence and then like a huge payoff for the end of the album in been the last 60 seconds of the the stage is just complete silence no more vinyl scratching nothing it's over that's the end [Music] this stage has no description that phrase has turned into a bit of a meme in the comments of the video but narrative Lee it makes sense to me according to the stage descriptions we've been seeing from the dementia care central.com by the time we've reached this point our character is very far gone they've lost the ability to communicate move in any significant way and really any means of expressing what it is they are experiencing so our author is left to sort of speculate as to how to present what's going on in their mind mind I can't find any sources to confirm or deny how I feel here so for a second times understand I am and have been talking with no authority and this is just my interpretation of the art and the information I've been able to find it confusions so thick you forget what you're forgetting and a beautiful bliss beyond this empty defeat are both very empty windy feeling tracks with a few musical moments outside of the blips and bleeps and one very short fanfare of horns these are experiences that emulate exactly how I'd imagined this stage of dementia in the third section the long decline is over we begin with a similar silence or absence of anything meaningful but very quickly we begin to hear a very slow swelling and distant echo a horn which turns into other instruments and periodically becomes a low silence where it feels like our character is experiencing their last moments as the in-between of sounds aren't filled with static or fuzz any longer but with silence and of the possible faint reverberation of the previous thought if it was significant enough towards the end of the track the pattern does bounce back however and the notes and licks become a little bit more frequent and vivid this is where I get a little speculative but I'm gonna keep going because I'm very long for the ride and I've been pretty moved by the story so far the final section place in the world fades away wraps up the project and is pretty heavy the track begins with silence and periodically we hear a few ethereal sounding swells like we have been before on the last two tracks however around the six-minute mark things begin to get very vibrant and they don't really let up like the previous tracks did closer to the end of the swelling's and releasing of chords sound relaxing and final and once they do release for the last time we have silence and like a light switch you know I can't give this away right seriously this is a very beautiful and somber moment on the entire six-and-a-half hour series so far and I at the very least recommend listening to a few tracks on each ant album soaking its ambience really trying to experience what it's trying to tell you and then listen to the last seven minutes on a place in the world fades away this has been by far the most profound and emotional experience I've ever had with music and with most other mediums of art I was not bored or Restless during any of my lessons although I personally feel that last track is a bit romanticized and maybe a tad optimistic either for creative reasons or just personal ones probably didn't want to leave his six and a half hour masterpiece on the same sour fleeting awful mental note that we had been sitting on for like three how there wasn't a moment where I felt a second of this project was sacrificed or wasted to not serve the narrative that the artist was trying to give us I felt every pretty much every second of that six and a half hour adventure was pretty important really trying to digest this entire project was a mental exercise and an emotional roller coaster definitely rose above that endurance test that I really was looking for at the beginning I can't imagine I can't even begin to imagine the process for making a piece of art like this like the technique the the understanding of how all your equipment works in a way to make it sound like you aren't using it and I don't believe outside of experiencing dementia for myself there could be a more passionately made or accurate feeling touched on to this experience for this video and for our beloved character I'd like to end this video with probably the most beautiful moment I've experienced in cinema and it's from a cheesy cowboy movie my grandpa showed me so please enjoy [Music] you I hope this doesn't sound like [ __ ]

Channel: Jazz and his growing group of Very Real friends

Views: 57,095

Rating: 4.9424462 out of 5

Keywords: Discussion, Everywhere at the end of time, Art, talk, The Caretaker, Ambient Music, video essay

Id: CJ9UsPBrPZY

Length: 48min 2sec (2882 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 04 2020