A producer from Stockport, England who cranked out experimental releases at a seemingly inexhaustible rate, Leyland James Kirby was behind V/Vm, whose releases ranged from manipulations of pigs feeding to copyright-abusing manipulations of pop music. In 2009, Kirby started the History Always Favours the Winners label, home to releases credited to the Caretaker and the Stranger, as well as the Leyland Kirby series Sadly, the Future Is No Longer What It Was. He stepped out a bit in 2013, when he released Watching Dead Empires in Decay, an album of nightmarish ambience credited to the Stranger, for Modern Love. Throughout his years of activity, Kirby has used an assortment of additional aliases for one-offs and short-term projects. ~ Andy Kellman