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zdenek liska - the cremator - finders keepers - vinyl

New Copy

Genre: Soundtracks

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

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 communist 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 manipu- lative 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 Zdene?k Liška (Malá Mor?ská Víla) providing the move- ment 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 con- crète 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.