The Cremator, by Zdeněk Liška

The Cremator

by Zdeněk Liška

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Robert Bloemkolk Finders Keepers releases wonderful, mostly forgotten and often stunning music. The work of composer Zdnenek Liska should be heard by a much larger audience. Quite amazing. Favorite track: Merciful Nature.

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sbstrd aka the bandcamp bandit~ V popelu není rozdíl. Favorite track: Poor Miss Carska.

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1.	Merciful Nature 02:12	buy track
2.	Spalovač mrtvol 03:18	buy track
3.	Potala Tibet 00:24	buy track
4.	Gifted Zina 00:44	buy track
5.	Holy Pictures 00:21	buy track
6.	This Charming Lady 01:22	buy track
7.	Mr. Strauss Crosses The Road 00:55	buy track
8.	Mr. Dvorák And The Timetable Of Death 02:20	buy track
9.	Mili's Carousel (Lovely Acrobatics) 01:15	buy track
10.	Waxworks/The Baths Of Franzensbad 03:19	buy track
11.	Drosophila Funebris 01:07	buy track
12.	How Unfortunate Are Those Who Die Unaware Of The Beauty Of Music/Lakmé's Preparation 02:27	buy track
13.	Louis Marin 00:12	buy track
14.	Miss Dagmar's Room 01:28	buy track
15.	Poor Miss Carska 01:09	buy track
16.	Mournful Cantor (Jewish Prayer) 01:24	buy track
17.	Kopfrkingl Salutes Death 00:49	buy track
18.	Casino On Rose Street 02:05	buy track
19.	Vison Of The Temple 01:19	buy track
20.	Lakmé's Cremation 00:36	buy track
21.	The Throne In Lhasa Awaits 01:28	buy track
22.	H. Bosch 01:45	buy track
23.	Running Zina/The Stars Are Above Us 02:54	buy track
24.	I Shall Sit On The Throne 01:25	buy track

about

Galvanising our ongoing commitment to the lost music of the Czech New Wave cinema movement from the late 1960s and 1970s, Finders Keepers Records follow up our series of previously unreleased music to Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders, Daisies, Saxana and The Little Mermaid with a short series of soundtracks for films by the country’s master of the macabre and the nation’s first point of call for freakish fairytales and hallucinogenic horror, Mr. Juraj Herz.

As another late entry to the unparalleled creative cinematic unison known in Europe as “the Czech film miracle”, Juraj Herz's 1969 feature film The Cremator was one of a clutch of certified cinematic literary adaptations that used the apolitical subjects of fantasy and surrealist horror to evade the com- munist censors’ abortive measures; dodging the overzealous cutting and burning process which poetically echoed the films own macabre and fantastical screenplay. Unifying a cast and crew of some of the Czech New Wave's leading lights, Herz’s macabre depiction of Ladislav Fuks' fictional account of a local crematorium boss whose hallucinogenic burning obsession with the afterlife is ignited by the Tibetan Book Of The Dead and intensifying manipulative Nazi propaganda is undeniably one of the greatest underexposed European horror films of all time.

Drawing similarities with other stark monochrome thrillers such as Roman Polanski's Repulsion, Herz’s comparatively untravelled classic also boasts a beguiling score and theme tune that remains one of the most memorable and spine-chilling melodic soundtracks by the country’s finest experimental soundtrack composer Zdeněk Liška (Malá Mořská Víla) providing the movement with one of its best loved signature scores. Featuring an ongoing partnership with studio conductor František Belfín (Daisies) and soprano singer Vlasta Soumarová Mlejnková (Marketa Lazarová), Liška puts his radical concrète and resampling techniques (see Ikarie XB1) to one side in favour of celestial choral and orchestral arrangements; menacing giallo-esque tension and recurring rhythmical motifs of Eastern bells and chimes illustrating Rudolf Hrušínský's Kopfrkingl character’s demise into murderous infatuation and the momentary cameo shots of the hallucinogenic death figure played by Helena Anýzová (Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders/Daisies).

From a country and era when isolated soundtrack music remained commercially unreleased Finders Keepers Records are proud to rescue, remaster and reincarnate this intense and timeless score by one of Europe's finest composers taking a rare excursion into horror territory as part of a filmography of more than 200 formerly unpressed film scores.

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released March 4, 2016

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