Karin Mérat, singer of XVII° Vie and Les Secrets de Morphée, has died
Karin Mérat, the French singer behind the darkwave group XVII° Vie and the neoclassical project Les Secrets de Morphée, died on 1 August 2026, aged 52.
Karin Mérat, the French singer and multi-instrumentalist who fronted the darkwave group XVII° Vie and ran the neoclassical project Les Secrets de Morphée for almost three decades, died on 1 August 2026 at the age of 52. Her death was made public by the Breton community station RBG – Radio Bro Gwened in Pontivy, in a message signed by DJ Stendhal, who had hosted her on his show “Darkness” in 2017. No cause has been given, and neither her labels nor her surviving projects have issued a statement.
The station’s presenter wrote that he had learned “avec tristesse” of the death of “une artiste lumineuse” he had been glad to invite onto the programme. Discogs lists her birth date as 25 January 1974 and her death as August 2026.
Mérat worked almost entirely outside the record industry’s usual channels. Her early records came out on Prikosnovénie, the French label that built the “heavenly voices” catalogue of ethereal and neoclassical wave in the 1990s; after 1999 she released nearly everything herself, in editions of a hundred copies or fewer, several of them hand-assembled.
Karin Mérat’s work with XVII° Vie and Les Secrets de Morphée
XVII° Vie began in Brittany in 1994, growing out of an earlier group, Derniers Chemins d’Automne. Mérat sang and played keyboards, drums, percussion and guitar. The cassette “L’Etoile Oubliée” appeared on Prikosnovénie in 1995, followed by the album “La Prana” in 1996, the archival collection “Past Isn’t Dead (1988-1994)” in April 1997 in a run of 500 copies, and “Llewella” in November 1997, recorded and mixed at the Loft between August 1996 and September 1997. The band also turned up on the compilations “Heavenly Voices Part Four” for Hyperium in 1996 and Discordia’s “Taste This 7” in 1997. XVII° Vie ended in 1999.
Les Secrets de Morphée grew directly out of it. Mérat formed the project with Amélie Duranteau in 1998, with Franck Dematteïs adding violin to some tracks, and in later years carried it alone with occasional guests on male vocals. The CD single “Les Ielles” came out on Iris and Prikosnovénie in May 1998, the album “Chuchotements” in October 1999, and “5 Avril 2000” in October 2001, recorded live at La Locomotive in Paris and pressed in 1,000 copies. Between them sat the two-disc “L’Octaèdre Gémellaire” in 1999, made in eight unique hand-built copies, and the 55-copy compilation “LSM” in February 2000.
After a long pause she returned to self-releasing: “Chimères” on 28 June 2012, the live “Enchantements” in December 2014, recorded in Mauron that August in a run of 100 copies, and “Les Médiévales” on 13 October 2019, an acoustic set taped with the guitarist MAJL at the Médiévales de Rochefort-en-Terre festival. That was her last release. Side-Line reviewed “Enchantements” in May 2015.
About Karin Mérat
Mérat was based in Morbihan, in Brittany, and her work stayed rooted there: the Rochefort-en-Terre recording, the Mauron concert and the band’s own social channels all point back to the same corner of the region. Alongside her two main groups she formed Am’Ganesha’n with Gérard Chambellant around 2001, a project that mixed ambient and world instrumentation across four albums, “Beyond The Soul” in 2001, “Somnia” in 2003, “Eleftheria” in 2005 and “Estolia” in 2007. She also released the CDr “Hymonia” as Ad Meratta in 1999.
Across all of it the constant was her voice, set against keyboards, flute, percussion and, on the later records, medieval and baroque instrumentation. She sold much of the catalogue by hand, at concerts and directly to listeners; the deluxe edition of “Llewella” was documented as available only through her.
She had released no new music since 2019, and there was no announcement of a project in progress when she died.
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