An Empty Bliss Beyond This World

An Empty Bliss Beyond This World
a painting of a stone with a matchstick sticking out of it sitting on a minimalist pedestal
Happy in Spite (2010), oil on canvas
Studio album by
Released1 June 2011[1]
StudioFlats in Berlin
Genre
Length45:21
LabelHistory Always Favours the Winners
ProducerLeyland Kirby
The Caretaker chronology
The Complete Digital Collection (1996 - 2008)
(2009)
An Empty Bliss Beyond This World
(2011)
Patience (After Sebald)
(2012)

An Empty Bliss Beyond This World (stylized as “An empty bliss beyond this World”) is the ninth studio album by the Caretaker, an ambient music project of English musician Leyland Kirby, released on 1 June 2011 through History Always Favours the Winners.

The record is based on a study regarding people with Alzheimer's disease being able to remember music they listened to when they were younger, as well as where they were and how they felt listening to it. The album samples pre-World War II ballroom records Kirby bought in Brooklyn in December 2010. This theme of Alzheimer's in music would be greatly expanded from 2016 to 2019 through Kirby's final series of albums as The Caretaker, Everywhere at the End of Time.

An Empty Bliss Beyond This World was the Caretaker's breakthrough album, garnering critical acclaim upon its release and earning several year-end accolades. Pitchfork has called it the 75th best album of the first half of the 2010s as well as the 14th best ambient album of all time.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Bandcamp was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference TinyMixTapes was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Roberts, Randall (8 July 2011). "In Rotation: 'An Empty Bliss Beyond This World' by the Caretaker". Los Angeles Times. Tronc. Retrieved 26 July 2017.
  4. ^ Phares, Heather. "Patience (After Sebald) – The Caretaker". AllMusic. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved 2 August 2017.