The Apollo label, home of brave ventures into ambience since the early 1990s, has housed such a prodigious array of talent that calling it a "subdivision" of parent label R&S almost feels like an insult. It's a sentiment James Leyland Kirby would no doubt agree with, as he sheds various aliases (V/Vm, the Caretaker, and the Stranger among many others) to head out under his own name for his debut EP for the imprint. Kirby often borrows liberally from other sources, so here he aligns those impulses with his surroundings by revisiting sounds that mirror the earlier Apollo releases, giving acres of space to tinny drum machines and soft synth lines that echo into eternity. Anyone familiar with Apollo releases such as Biosphere's Microgravity or even Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works 85-92 should find a warm glow of familiarity overcoming them on a cursory glance at Breaks My Heart Each Time.
Kirby's known for his adept way of flitting through contrasting styles, tying on various genres as if he was trying on a new coat or hat. Crucially, he's a picky dresser, and one with a depth of knowledge and intuitive feel for the musical worlds he immerses himself in. There's not always a logical pattern to the paths he chooses, but occasionally there's something resembling a handoff between one record to the next, forming subtle links between his creations. The title track of this release peeks out from behind a blanket of fuzz that feels like a distant cousin to his Caretaker work, although its innards are remarkably different. Here, Kirby plays with elegance and antagonism, the former represented by sheets of drifting synth, and the latter emerging in the piston-like machinery stamped across its surface.
Working in contrasts is something of a theme for Kirby—his V/VM output skewered bland pop on a spike, while his Caretaker releases find light and dark impulses running through the grooves of scratchy old 78rpm records. His explorations here aren't so different, with the minimal beauty of "Diminishing Emotion" picking up an undercurrent of isolationist fear as it slowly unravels. Breaks My Heart also deals in pure thrills. "Staring Down the Sun" is a dysfunctional club banger that expertly captures the feel of nascent computer music, resembling a paean to the trials and tribulations of running Cubase on Windows 95, its manic race to the finish resembling the panicked wait to see if a save button's progress bar can beat out a blue-screen meltdown. "Last Ditch Legacy" is similar, but more joyous in execution, skirting closer to the sunnier outlook of Mixmaster Morris's work for Apollo.
Where Kirby succeeds on Breaks My Heart is by digging in hard to the era he's sourcing. He's working with a familiar sound palette here, but it's more than simple tribute fare—there's a feel for the duality of emotions that runs through that early Apollo work, whether it’s in the mixture of playfulness and sensitivity that runs through Ambient Works 85-92, or in the way something like "Stella's Cry" by Jam & Spoon set up an optimistic buffer to the darker ambient dreams of a track like "Cloudwalker II" by Biosphere. There's a sense of care and affinity here, of someone playing around with material that clearly means a lot to them. Naturally, Kirby’s already moved on, prepping another volume of his Intrigue & Stuff series and plotting a full-length release for Apollo in the not-too distant future. Here, he achieves the rare feat of demonstrating exactly how to emulate your heroes without becoming overawed in the process.
