Songs of devotion
Four discs bring together overlooked works by Florian Fricke’s kosmischers. By Andrew Male.
Popol Vuh
★★★★
Vol. 2 – Acoustic & Ambient Spheres
BMG. DL/LP
RELEASED IN 2019, the first volume of BMG’s ongoing Popol Vuh reissue programme featured five albums by the devotional German cosmonauts, from the primitive alien Moogtrips of 1970 debut Affenstunde to a double-disc version of their dark mantric 1978 score for Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu, via the gnostic electric mass of 1972’s Hosianna Mantra, the soaring oceanic hymnals of 1974’s Einsjäger &
Siebenjäger and the majestic, mysterious Aguirre from 1976. It was titled The Essential
Album Collection, implying that any subsequent anthology would be something lesser.
Not so. If Vol. 2 brings together four of the Vuh’s less familiar works it does so in the knowledge that they are worthy of reappraisal. The first, 1973’s Seligpreisung, the follow-up to Hosianna Mantra, finds Florian Fricke reworking the Gospel of Matthew, and marks the arrival of Amon Düül II’s Daniel Fichelscher on guitars and drums. Along with the second guitarist, Gila’s Conny Veit, Fichelscher lends Florian Fricke and Robert Eliscu’s pastoral oboe and piano duets a Floydian grandeur, with Fricke’s singing (regular vocalist Djong Yun was absent) investing the album’s acclamations with a restless unearthly uncertainty.
The second LP here, Coeur De Verre, marks another significant stylistic shift. After the surging psych guitar waves and dark Krishna heaviosity of 1976’s Letzte Tage-Letzte Nächte,
Fricke composed the all-instrumental score to Werner Herzog’s dreamlike, eerie 1976 film Heart Of Glass, a tale of an 18th century Bavarian town descending into madness in which the director hypnotised the entire cast to elicit the correct trance-like performances. Fittingly, the score might be the group’s most mesmerising, Fichelscher’s euphoric high altitude guitar dancing patterns around Fricke’s hypnotic piano, Alois Gromer’s meditative ceremonial sitar and the uncanny trance-like flute of Mathias Tippelskirch. In the wake of this recognised career high, 1983’s AgapeAgape Love-Love comes as a complete surprise. Fricke regarded it as one of Popol Vuh’s finest works but its reputation is mixed and released versions have suffered from poor sound quality. Admittedly, the version here (reviewed on mp3) still sounds muddy in places but the album itself has aged exceptionally well, Renate Knaup’s layered vocals meshing with Fichelscher and Veit’s ascending guitars, and Fricke’s eerily thrummed piano create a weird, unfolding soundtrack to ritualistic worship somewhere between celestial and sinister.
The last work here, Cobra Verde, marked both Herzog’s final collaboration with Popol Vuh and the group’s last grand work. Made in collaboration with the Bavarian State Opera, it’s a curiously professional and stately affair, undeniably beautiful but lacking the otherworldly mystery of his greatest work. There are certainly other Popol Vuh albums that could have been included in its place, but doubtless they are being made ready for