I suppose you can’t blame an artist when his or her closely guarded style suddenly becomes the ‘in-thing’. With piles upon piles of haunted, isolationist downer dirge increasingly filling the record racks, the past few years have seen James Kirby aka The Caretaker aka V/VM aka Leyland Kirby move from being a marginal, faceless malcontent – purveyor of onimous noise-fogs and evil-minded remixes that used to spook unwitting John Peel listeners when they least expected it - to a position somewhat akin to a ringleader for a whole swathe of underground music practitioners.

From being an entirely anonymous, shadowy presence back in the early ‘00s (I was listening to both V/VM and The Caretaker for years before I realised they were the work of the same person), he’s moved on to become a fairly ubiquitous figure - an easy reference point, with a readymade set of expectations; “Oh yeah, it’s more of that Caretaker sort of stuff”, etc etc.

Like I say, it’s not his fault, but still - I confess that when I first saw the name and cover art of his new venture under the name The Stranger, I couldn’t help feeling that maybe he’d finally jumped the shark and succumbed to self-parody. “Watching Dead Empires In Decay”? You’ve gotta be kidding, right? Ooh, look, faded b&w portrait of a bleak, abandoned tower block… gimme a break. In fact this album’s aesthetic presentation, taken in and of itself, could make a pretty good case for all this dark, industrial electronica in 2013 occupying a similar position to that of post-rock in 2003 – eg, predictable, self-important, shit-boring, and of little use to anyone.

So I went in with low expectations, not feeling much in the mood for a bunch of contrived cyclopean gloom and suspecting that this might be where Kirby and I finally part company. But, of course, actually listening to the thing tossed all those foolish notions out the window straight away. Dash it all, why does he have to make everything he touches so damned good? That’s talent for you I suppose.

Taking a distinctly different approach from either the Alzheimer’s wracked ballroom memories of The Caretaker or the melancholic drones of Leyland Kirby, The Stranger introduces us to an entirely new landscape of musique concrète amplified machine-shop rumble, distant thudding reverberations of earthquakes or collapsing zombie nightclubs, detuned cellos and bassoons howling exhaustedly at the moon, and bright, skittering percussion spelling out warm, non-human rhythm patterns, like raindrops hitting tin shack roofs. Such woolly descriptions and glib comparisons don’t really do these compositions justice, but if you’re looking for a map reference, imagine David Lynch and Alan Splet’s ‘Eraserhead’ soundtrack filtered through the methodology and emotional undertow of Pierre Henry or Steve Reich and the musical language perfected by The Necks and you’ll get some idea of the general tone of this record. There’s some sinisterly cozy Boards of Canada-esque synth drift buried in there somewhere too (well, I mean, of course there is), and each track in turn brings out some welcome new twists and sound sources that ably succeed in fighting off the monotony often inherent in this kind of music, as does the presence of a subliminal melodic sensibility that occasionally emerges fully formed in staggeringly beautiful fashion (particularly on closing track ‘About To Enter a Strange New Period’, which must rank as one of Kirby’s best moments to date).

Easily surpassing the limitations imposed by its increasingly tired aesthetic signifiers, ‘Dead Empires..’ makes for compelling listening. As is so often the case from Mr. Kirby, it’s the kind of record so engrossing and atmospheric it can practically change the temperature in a room when played. The question of precisely WHY you’d want to change the  temperature is a trickier one to get to grips with, but if you’re dead set on languishing in the doldrums of late-capitalist pre-apocalyptic despair (and many contemporary listeners are, it seems), you’d be hard pressed to find a better way to go about it than this.

Listen & buy on bandcamp.

Labels: best of 2013, The Stranger