Released on 8 December 2017, Kirby composed it after the death of his collaborator, Mark Fisher, who died by suicide on January 13, 2017 at age 48.

Consisting of a single title track throughout its 48-minute runtime, its proceeds would be donated to the mental health charity Mind.

In addition, the phrase itself is the final line in the liner notes for the Caretaker's Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia, which Fisher wrote.

It's a Desert Out There... is an ambient album consisting of a single track in its runtime, presenting previously unreleased music by the Caretaker.

[9] According to writer Adam Scovell from The Quietus, its "fog of dead voices" makes it have "a sense of enveloping that suggests spatial qualities within the music."

The record features slight tonal changes, with the sounds sometimes overlapping and fading to make the listeners forget what they heard before.

He felt the work negates being explicit in its core due to it being "beyond representation; loss via a too-soon, unexpected death."

[12] Released in 1800 copies of CD,[10] it included a message stating its proceeds would be donated to the mental health charity Mind.

"[10] The artwork, painted in 2016 and named Blame Shines Within the Demise, was created by Kirby's long-time friend Ivan Seal.