Everywhere at The End of Time

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.

Robert Wyatt - The End Of An Ear (1970) {2013 Japan Mini LP Blu-spec DSD Remaster SICP 30323}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 268 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 110 Mb
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© 1970, 2013 Columbia / Sony Music Japan | SICP 30323
Rock / Art Rock / Experimental / Jazz Rock

Cardboard sleeve reissue features remastering in 2013 and the high-fidelity Blu-spec CD2 format (compatible with standard CD players). Of all the projects Robert Wyatt created apart from his tenure with Soft Machine and Matching Mole, The End of an Ear has to be the strangest, and among the most beautiful and misunderstood recordings of his career. Recorded near the end of his membership in Soft Machine, End of an Ear finds Wyatt experimenting far more with jazz and avant-garde material than in the jazz-rock-structured environment of his band.

The Sons of Champlin released three albums on Capitol Records between 1969 and 1971 (Loosen Up Naturally, The Sons, and Follow Your Heart), none of which was a commercial hit for various reasons, but not for lack of musical quality. This 78-minute CD makes a reasonable selection of the highlights from those LPs, demonstrating that at their best, the Sons were a collection of talented musicians who packed their songs full of good solos that grew out of complicated arrangements. Although they were a part of the psychedelic San Francisco scene of the time, their music never quite fit the mold, leaning much more toward jazz and R&B than, say, the Grateful Dead. the Sons played instruments including saxophones and a vibraphone, not otherwise typical of the San Francisco Sound, and they were less interested in songs than in creating platforms for soloing. They might start a tune like "Love of a Woman" as a gentle, romantic ballad with an acoustic guitar, but midway through that would suddenly give way to a jazzy instrumental section in a different time signature, return to the ballad, then again go off into jazz.

Clocking in at 26 minutes, Weather feels more like an EP than an LP, but there's a reason for the brevity. While Huey Lewis & the News were completing their first album of original material in nearly 20 years, Lewis was diagnosed with Meniere's disease, an affliction that effects hearing. Meniere's meant Huey could no longer hear notes clearly, which meant that he had to retire from performing, which in turn meant that the music the News completed for their new album would in effect be their final album. Since Huey Lewis & the News wrote and recorded Weather without planning it as a goodbye, the album has a light, breezy tone, and that amiability is actually a fitting farewell for a group who always were a hard-working rock & soul combo.