The Caretaker is a long-running project by English ambient musician Leyland James Kirby. His work as the Caretaker is characterized as exploring memory and its gradual deterioration, nostalgia and melancholia. Initially, the project was inspired by the haunted ballroom scene in the 1980 film The Shining, with his first several releases consisting of treated and manipulated samples of '30s ballroom pop recordings.
His works have received critical acclaim in publications such as The Wire, the New York Times, and BBC Music.