Last year’s album An Empty Bliss Beyond this world was an album critically applauded for its use of carefully selected samples and the experimental inspiration for the project: Alzheimer’s patients’ ability to recall better with the help of music. It made for an interesting and a surprisingly good listen, a haunting record that you found yourself drawn to time and time again just to stew in the gentle crackling and eerie jazz.

So Leyland Kirby is back, this time with Patience (After Sebald), a soundtrack to a film by Grant Gee about the German writer, W.G. Sebald, a writer known for his works on, memory and loss of memory as well as decay (thanks Wikipedia). So with that in mind there could only be one artist you’d want to score a film about such subjects and The Caretaker steps in with a record that follows in much of the same themes as An Empty Bliss... but this time the subtle ballroom Jazz is replaced by haunting piano pieces and the quiet crackling of a vinyl record or an old radio has been replaced by the monotonous fuzz of an old film reel.

And it’s these details that make Patience a well designed record and I can imagine something perfectly suited to the film it was made for. This is not such an enjoyable listen as Kirby’s previous outing; the piano pieces present are mixed in such a way that it feels claustrophobic, intentionally of course, but it can make it rather difficult to listen to. I Have Become Almost Invisible, to Some Extent Like a Dead Man is a prime example where it almost feels the walls are moving inwards. These feelings are of course all testament to Kirby’s attention to the way these sounds can create a picture in your head and it all works beautifully. But one can’t help feeling that some of the music needs room to breathe.

While Patience (After Sebald), may not have bested its predecessor. It’s an album that continues on the trademarks that Kirby has established as an ambient composer and further blurs the line between experimentation and music. If you’re looking for something a bit more relaxing however then keep hold of An Empty Bliss Beyond this World for just a bit longer.