James Kirby did not plan out making a record like '' An Empty Bliss Beyond This World '' , and the album was made because of " pure chance in action at all times . " The making of the album started when he shopped at a Brooklyn store in December 2010 and bought a ten-dollar collection of numerous old ballroom music records . He would n't use the records for a while until he was in a Berlin flat , where he spent around a month tracking them by playing them on a broken turntable and transferring the recordings to a digital recorder he obtained while vacationing in Spain during the 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull . Then , by the time he moved to another flat , he edited and mixed the recordings . The artwork for '' An Empty Bliss Beyond This World '' was done by Kirby 's long-time friend Ivan Seal
2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull
2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull
An Empty Bliss Beyond This World