Bernard Parmegiani – Les Soleils de l’Île de Pâques / La Brûlure de Mille Soleils – 2LP

WRWTFWW Records is overjoyed to announce the release of two never-released-before soundtracks by French award-winning composer, audio experimenter, electroacoustic and musique concrète magician, and all-around sound visionary Bernard Parmegiani, sourced from the original reels, and neatly packed together in a gatefold sleeve double LP with English and French liner notes. The 2 albums are also available in an all-in-one digipack CD.

“Les Soleils de l’Île de Pâques” (1972), by French director Pierre Kast, is a sci-fi feature which secured itself a well-deserved place in the pantheon of mysterious cult films thanks to hallucinatory (and superb) cinematography, exploration of supernatural phenomenons and occult symbolism, and one hell of a trippy atmosphere. “La Brûlure de Mille Soleils” (1965) also comes from Pierre Kast, but this time with the help of none other than writer, photographer, multimedia artist, homme à tout faire Chris Marker (notably known for films La Jetée, A Grin Without a Cat and Sans Soleil) who edited this bizarre short to brain melting results that live up to the promises of its synopsis: A depressed millionaire poet, accompanied by his cat Marcel and a sign language robot, travels in time to shake a persistent feeling of ennui and falls hopelessly in love with a woman from another planet. Nuff said!

A renowned member of the prestigious GRM (Groupe de recherches musicales, the French equivalent of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop) and frequent collaborator of Pierre Schaeffer, Iannis Xenakis, and Pierre Henry among others, Bernard Parmegiani does what he does best with these two rare soundtracks: creating moods with electroacoustic experimentation, elevating the weird and hypnotic with soundscapes from other dimensions, and cementing his status as a true innovator.