Plk C'est Mort

A collection of rare and unreleased recordings from the archives of electronic music pioneer Mort Garson, composer of Mother Earth's Plantasia. The compilation plays like an ultimate Mort Garson playlist, and includes alternate takes of Plantasia tracks, music for never-aired radio advertisements, themes for science fiction films, erotic oddities, and much more from the prolific composer's '60s and '70s synthesizer oeuvre. This deluxe edition includes art by Robert Beatty and new liner notes by Andy Beta

Le Bal Du Rat Mort (The Dead Rat's Ball) is released in December 1971 and 2000 copies are sold. This release did not exhibit the true face of the band, but it did however show their talent as musicians and as composers and ability to combine different influences. This album is a mixture of rock, free-jazz, fusion, folk, oldies tunes, chanson Francaise and a general theatrical and quirky approach to composing. The overall result is a well-done mixture of styles and atmospheres. This may not be groundbreaking but it is different than the average output of French bands at that time and can be seen as avant-garde in their musical approach in this album.

Luigi Cherubini's Chant sur la mort de Joseph Haydn was not, in the event, written after Haydn's death in 1809, but in response to a premature report of that event in 1804. The revival of Classical-period music has thus far given Cherubini short shrift, which is surprising in connection with the man whom Beethoven called the greatest living composer. Maybe this German release, by the veteran historical-instrument ensemble Cappella Coloniensis, will stimulate fresh activity. The chief attraction here is the seldom recorded tribute to Haydn. It's a wonderful work, with an unorthodox form that seems to bespeak strong feeling. Cherubini worked from an existing funeral text by Masonic author Louis Guillemain de Saint-Victor, but the shape of the piece is his own. He opens with a slow, profound polyphonic introduction that not only must have appealed to Beethoven but perhaps even influenced the idiom of his late works.

La Mort d’Abel (1810/1825) – halfway between opera and oratorio – presents, in a spectacular fashion, the murder of Abel by his brother Cain consumed by jealousy. Rodolphe Kreutzer deploys therein the grand art of the tragédie lyrique imagined by Gluck whilst adding his own personal touches, which identifies him as being more than the modest violinist dedicatee of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata. As a top ensemble in Belgium and across Northern Europe, Les Agrémens and the Chœur de chambre de Namur have, for a long time, been exploring rare repertories with enthusiasm, creativity and to the highest standards. Assisted by singers from the rising generation (notably tenor Sébastien Droy and baritone Jean-Sébastien Bou), conductor Guy Van Waas ventures triumphantly into music which nobody before him had imagined there existing such quality.