
Do you remember the first all-nighter that you pulled with your friends? The excitement of going through the entire night without getting a second of rest, then how you wound up falling asleep until the next day as soon as your friends left early that morning? Or maybe that time when one of your classmates made fun of you in front of your other peers still resides in your mind; having lacked the confidence to stand up for yourself, you were filled with embarrassment and shame that lingered for months. Perhaps you even remember the epic stories that your grandfather used to tell—the countless laughs and invaluable wisdom that they offered.
Memories play a key role in an individual’s life. They serve as a source of both pleasant and unpleasant feelings, foster gratitude and enable growth through honest reflection, among many other benefits. That being said, memories are pivotal to the development and sense of one’s own identity and how they relate to the rest of the world.
Taking this into consideration, who—or what—would an individual be without their memories? Would they be anyone at all? This terrifying thought is masterfully explored in the remarkable project, Everywhere at the End of Time.
“Anchorless and unmoored”
Everywhere at the End of Time is a six-hour long musical experiment created by musician Leyland Kirby under the alias, “The Caretaker.” The listener is placed inside the mind of a victim of dementia (or Alzheimer’s), a disease that causes cognitive decay and the loss of memories as a result. The project is segmented into six stages (or albums, which are meant to be listened to back-to-back), each an hour long, representing the different phases and progression of the sickness.

“In my mind,” Junior at JCHS Jackson Provan states, “the difference between Alzheimer’s (and other neurodegenerative diseases) and something like cancer is that with cancer, you lose your body—with dementia, you lose your ability to live and function within it.”
“The notion of being trapped in one’s physical body while mentally deteriorating is horrifying; you are forced to watch your own memories, your life, fade away right in front of you.” In addition to memory loss, dementia also manifests in the inability to perform basic functions like eating and swallowing in the later stages. The horror of the disease does not end here, as “once the last memory fades, your body persists”; the mind stops working, yet the heart keeps beating. “You are stranded, drifting through space, not an anchor in sight.”
Kirby took on the immense challenge of containing the horrific reality of succumbing to Alzheimer’s within his experiment, and he undoubtedly succeeded. “The Caretaker’s use of classic big band recordings from the 1930s and ‘40s as his sonic canvas is really clever,” Jackson explains, “because it transports the listener back in time—back, I would argue, to the childhood of the [victim].” From this perspective, Everywhere at the End of Time essentially captures a life in a bottle, as “this technique allows the subsequent manipulation and degradation of the recordings to simulate the progression (and eventual regression) of a human mind over the course of 90 years or so.”
The project begins with a slowed version of the song, “Heartaches”, which was performed and recorded by acclaimed musician Al Bowlly and his band in 1931. This song tells the story of someone who is desperately holding onto the memory of a woman whom he has presumably broken up with. While he recognizes that he should allow his “burning memory” of her to rest in the past and pursue a new significant other, he struggles to move past his feelings for the former love of his life. Within the context of the album, this may represent the dementia patient’s memories of a past relationship which he deeply valued—memories that are soon to be lost.
In the latter end of the experience, the listener finds themself in a “stranded state,” which Kirby conveys “through ever-increasing amounts of static noise and severe analog degradation”; the sampled music becomes practically indistinguishable from the excess noise, as the memories of the victim evaporate and his ability to recognize the faces of his loved ones is lost, among many other functions.
“[This] is relieved only, in the end, by death (simulated through the glorious sounds of an angelic choir, inviting the listener to leave the long-useless body behind),” which is then followed by a minute of silence to signify the passing-on of the protagonist. The victim’s final hour comes to an end with the graceful, warm embrace of the afterlife (or whatever follows life within the universe of the project). He is finally delivered from his seemingly endless nightmare in what makes for a compelling conclusion to this rollercoaster of an experience.

A work for the ages
Overall, Everywhere at the End of Time is a monumental feat of modern artistry. Leyland Kirby’s project makes for a captivating, uniquely terrifying exploration of one of society’s most feared diseases, as Jackson would agree that “EATEOT is a fascinating piece that makes for a frighteningly effective and existential listening experience.” Through the combination of media from the past—such as Al Bowlly’s “Heartaches”—with techniques of the present—most notably the intentional inclusion of static and distorted noise, “[Kirby] does an incredible job of simulating [dementia’s] theoretical effects.”
As Jackson found himself “thoroughly shook by the end of the six-album project,” Everywhere at the End of Time is bound to ingrain itself in the memory of anyone else who dares endure the experience.

Works Cited: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dementia