Q&A with The Wire and the Caretaker

The third of four 2010 artist Q&A sessions features THE CARETAKER

British ambient sampler James Leyland Kirby (aka The Caretaker) uses old ballroom 78-rpm records from the ‘20s and ’30s, with all their ambience and static, to bring the ghosts of a past era back to life. The very prolific Kirby got his start in the mid-’90s as pioneering pop-abuser V/Vm, and then moved onto samples of classical recordings as The Caretaker. The resulting effect is mesmerizing, and has led critics internationally to refer to Kirby’s work as one of the leading lights of the hauntology movement that is currently taking ambient music into some of its most captivating terrain. Like William Basinski and Philip Jeck – two similarly minded practitioners – THE CARETAKER samples purposely old or deteriorating recordings to build grainy, haunting atmospheres that say as much about time and age as about musical texture. A creator of supremely ambitious multi-disc epics, Kirby’s 2009 three-disc album “Sadly The Future Is Not What It Was” has been hailed as one of the quiet masterpieces of the last decade.

Shot on site during MUTEK 2010, the four Q&A sessions will be featured over the months leading up to the festival, as a preview to DIGI_SECTION, our professional conference series that makes up an integral part of our festival each year. The remaining session featureS Kevin Martin of KING MIDAS SOUND.

>>AUDIO ONLY VERSION<<

Interviewer: Derek Walmsley, The Wire
Camera, Sound, Editing: Meg Hewings
Production Coordinator: Patti Schmidt