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There's something unspeakable wandering the halls of a deserted hotel somewhere in the past and its sound has been captured so that all can know it. Salvaged from dusty records in plain white and brown sleeves, these recordings take a decidedly darker stroll into the halls of forgotten happiness and celebration. The Caretaker has managed to take the deserted and neglected and give them new life by expanding their sound: horns blasting for the satisfaction of dancing men and women are slowed down to funeral marches and the static and hiss of old records become the wind and rain as it toils outside the windows of a shining and elegant ballroom. There's an element of surgery in The Caretaker's approach: that which must've seemed so vibrant and brimming with life is torn open so reveal something betraying that image inside. Everyone had their demons at this party and each of them were quite desperate to hide that little part of themselves; fear had its axe in everyone's back. But there's more going on here than just psychological investigation: The Caretaker strips back a little bit of reality to reveal the void underneath everything.
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Every once in a while, an artist comes along who sounds born into a sound, like while in the womb his parents played him classic records that he just absorbed into his psyche. Andy Wagner has that quality, like there's nothing else in this world he could be doing because it just wouldn't fit. This multi-instrumentalist uses guitar, keyboard, bass, and accordion to construct pop songs that defy the typical trappings to derive at something more.
Earlier this year Autechre curated the fifth All Tomorrow's Parties festival, and of that bounty comes this, actually the fourth ATP compilation. All Tomorrow's Parties comps have never been more than glorified mixtapes ("ultimate" mixtapes according to Thurston Moore), thoughtfully scratching the surface of one of the best large-scale concert series; Autechre's volume, though, is the first with potential to transcend its posterity-building, afterthought status, becoming an (almost) essential collection.
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