Reddit – Dive into anything

This album’s purpose is to tell the listener through music on what it’s like to be undergoing dementia. It portrays a gradual, but terrifying deterioration of the human mind consisting in confusion, failed remembrance, terror, and eventually the complete loss of self. It is a six and a half hours mega album with six parts, each of which represents a separate stage of dementia. Each part has the following descriptions described nicely by the uploader of the album in the provided link (vwmtest):

Stage 1: Here we experience the first signs of memory loss. This stage is most like a beautiful daydream. The glory of old age and recollection. The last of the great days.

Stage 2: The second stage is the self realization and awareness that something is wrong with a refusal to accept that. More effort is made to remember so memories can be more long form with a little more deterioration in quality. The overall personal mood is generally lower than the first stage and at a point before confusion starts setting in.

Stage 3: Here we are presented with some of the last coherent memories before confusion fully rolls in and the grey mists form and fade away. Finest moments have been remembered, the musical flow in places is more confused and tangled. As we progress some singular memories become more disturbed, isolated, broken and distant. These are the last embers of awareness before we enter the post awareness stages.

Stage 4: Post-Awareness Stage 4 is where serenity and the ability to recall singular memories gives way to confusions and horror. It’s the beginning of an eventual process where all memories begin to become more fluid through entanglements, repetition and rupture.

Stage 5: Post-Awareness Stage 5 confusions and horror. More extreme entanglements, repetition and rupture can give way to calmer moments. The unfamiliar may sound and feel familiar. Time is often spent only in the moment leading to isolation.

Stage 6: Post-Awareness Stage 6 is without description.

I’m not going to spoil too much of the details of the composition of the album as it’s better to go in this album somewhat blind, but it initially starts with old time inspired ambience (made entirely digitally impressively) and that same music goes through a gradually, but dramatic change and it gets more scattered and loose as the album drags on. This is the Caretaker’s (James Leyland Kirby’s) final piece before he retired, that was split into four separate releases: Stage 1 in 2016, Stages 2 & 3 in 2017, Stages 4 & 5 in 2018, and Stage 6 in 2019 as well as a separate album Everywhere, an Empty Bliss in 2019 which consisted of the unused pieces in the 6-staged album. This album for me was a very long and intense, but interesting listen and I would personally recommend to listen to it in one sitting as it was meant to be listened whenever you make yourself the time to do so as it’s one of my favorites of the decade. Feel free to discuss.