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  • Record Label:
  • Release Date:
An Empty Bliss Beyond This World Image
Metascore
82

Universal acclaim - based on 8 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
8.6

Universal acclaim- based on 12 Ratings

  • Summary: British producer/experimental artist Jim Kirby releases his latest album under The Caretaker name.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 8
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 8
  3. Negative: 0 out of 8
  1. Nov 22, 2011
    100
    In bringing to light these stillborn-again pleasures, The Caretaker reveals himself to be nothing less than formidably eponymous.
  2. Nov 22, 2011
    82
    Bliss is eerie because it takes the seduction of those forms and turns it slightly askew; there's something unsettling about the musical equivalent of a permanent smile.
  3. Nov 22, 2011
    80
    While the record is certainly appreciable on purely musical terms--this is evocative, heart-tugging stuff--when knowledge of Kirby's intent lurks underneath the damaged acetate grooves, it becomes something else entirely: A poignant interrogation of memory loss and aging.
  4. Mojo
    Dec 22, 2011
    80
    A liminal, dreamlike music of eye-moistening poignancy. [Aug 2011, p.106]
  5. Nov 22, 2011
    70
    Even with today's technology, harvesting emotions as such is perplexing and strenuous. But Kirby does it with a special kind of grace.
  6. Feb 15, 2012
    70
    Less brutal, lighter, and more nuanced, with carefully chosen snippets of cornet and piano.
  7. Nov 22, 2011
    70
    As a whole, An Empty Bliss is a remarkably cohesive listen and one that achieves its goals, but whether or not it, in and of itself, is an entirely creative work is another question entirely.

See all 8 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. May 17, 2013
    8
    An old man sitting in an old empty house, in an old empty world listening to an old gramophone. His memories are all foggy and broken. AAn old man sitting in an old empty house, in an old empty world listening to an old gramophone. His memories are all foggy and broken. A little bit repetitive, but very interesting experimental music worth checking out. Expand