POLLpul Vuh

And yes, I already wish I'd titled this thread PoPOLL Vuh.

what were you thinking

I guess I wasn't.

more like popol poo amirite

messa di orfeo is a decent late record.

nosferatu is really boring, post-that is especially dire, check out "sei still wisse ich bin" if you don't believe

― the late great, Tuesday, December 31, 2013 3:11 AM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

voted "sei still wisse ich bin"

kind of feel like my favorite popol vuh album is whichever one i've listened to most recently... but not sure if I should vote Das Hohelied Salomos! It is really great though. hmmm.

having trouble choosing
i really love all of their phases and feel attached to them equally
this is why i can't vote

i could explain in florid detail why i like each one, but that's too much typing!!

At the risk of sounding precious, I can't really think of them in a "that album is better than that album" way - though I obv. do think some are better than others, uh, does that make any sense?

yeah that's basically how I feel. I think. I haven't heard any of those 90s records tho. good stuff?

Hmmmmmm, not really. "For Me and You" is nice in places. And, as mentioned, "Messa di Orfeo" is decent.

yeah that makes sense.
i haven't heard the 90s albums either. i have taken a zen approach to running into new pv when i need it and it's working pretty well. maybe i will see a used cd of one of those somewhere and then i'll buy it.

i just keep thinking of reasons to vote for each one and they are all good reasons imo

should i vote for my first because it was the one that enchanted me?
should i vote for the one that needs me?
should i vote for the one i can't even listen to around other people because it is so emotional?
should i vote for the one that i was listening to when i had a transcendent experience in a plant conservatory?

so many options

tempted to go with heart of glass, but man, I don't know!

that's one of the covers i used in the flyer i have yet to hang anywhere
i figure that if someone recognizes that cover and has positive associations, we have at least one thing in common

also i love the image
the movie is good but not herzog's among greatest, but the book about the movie is highly entertaining

man of course i screwed that up
oh well

i have high hopes for this poll; i need Definitive PV Shopping List.

what have you heard?

what i mean to ask is what type pf pv is your current basis for wanting more

mostly scattershot willy-nilly homemade comps (ye olde cassettes!)... but i know i love Salomos and Glass

ok, you need LT-LN
that is my prescription

TOP 5 (MOST LISTENT TO) POPOL VUH ALBUMS IN NO ORDER:

In Den Gärten Pharaos (1971)
Hosianna Mantra (1972)
Letze Tage - Letze Nächt (1976)
Heart Of Glass (1977)
Brüder Des Schattens - Söhne Des Lichts (1978)

hell of a band imo, but looking at this list i realize i've heard VERY LITTLE of the post-78 material.

very hard proposition. My Danny vote is for Herz aus Glas, my Florian vote is for Bruder des Schattens, but Hosianna and Einsjager have both been climbing in the ranks lately. And LT-LN is unbeatable in its way. Bruder is probably the most emotional for me. And side A of Einsjager. While Herz speaks to me as a guitarist the most. And "Aguirre" (the track) sits by itself being this monstrous beauty.

ian you need sei stille

Never totally understood the love for LT - LN. I mean, it's good, but...

As for later albums, I can tell you quite definitively that City Raga is tough. As in, tough to listen to.

I do not know Sei Stille! I should correct this immediately I guess.

that's my favorite to sing along to

this thread needs some visual assistance

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7344/9875112824_ef41972025.jpg

anyone here actually read the popol vuh book? you know, the mayan one?

i have it in spanish but i only read a few pages because the print is really small!

voted Einsjäger but really there are five or six others I like just as well

voted affenstunde cause the early stuff has been sounding better to me in the past year than ever before

the Popol Vuh orchestral composition by Ginastera is really good btw, in the 20th century "composers from various nations do their own stab at the Rite of Spring" sweepstakes

voting garten, despite my love for the later more characteristic stuff. it was the first i heard and it still sounds to me like one of the greatest musical recordings ever made whenever i listen to it.

Cast my vote for Einsjäger & Siebenjäger today. Could pick another one for every other day of the week.

who would have thought a humble drummer (sorry any drummers out there!) would turn out to be such an astonishing guitarist?

one of my favorite quotes from ilm. fichelscher is amazing.

you need sei stille

yes, it is excellent.

i really like agape-agape for post 78 material
really pretty

did any of you guys ever hear the weird silly long remix thing Fricke jr did called "Future Sound Experience" or something-- when I joined eMusic in 2004 it was the only thing available there that contained vintage PV material, albeit awkwardly reconfigured.

yeah -- i was really confused by it for a really long time, but it grew on me

What is the best Fichelscher record?

whoo
that's a good q

einsjager? herz/glas? lt-ln? all equally transcendent imo

his drum playing is so hard for me to figure out because of the way they recorded everything
also his sense of rhythm is one of my favorite in all of musics

Thanks! Have definitely spent time with einsjager and dabbled around some of the other albums but don't know any of them super-well (never owned a copy of any of them).

you'll like it, i promise.

Oh, I have no doubt, I have liked about everything I have heard, but they are just one of those bands I haven't tracked down actual records from yet. I look forward to it, one of many future listening projects to get excited about.

The pun on the title is annoying me so much! It gives me semantic satiation every time I try to read it.

Sorry. I'm ok with a mod fixing it, actually. PoPOLL Vuh makes SO much more sense. I was so worried I was going to fuck up the poll by forgetting to italicize a title or something.

slight derail/PSA: if anyone has any fichelscher-style noodling lying around that could use some drums, i would be honored to give it a try. i do feel super weird posting that, but my philosophy is that it might work out better/safer than craigslist or trying to find like-minded people purely by chance. thank you for reading this PSA.

also the title has a spelling error so i agree with fixing it

LL i will provide this! When I play fingerstyle on my danelectro (ie no pick) i tend to get fichelscherische. I'll send it along with the fear bff overdub I owe you!

xposts my favorite for Danny shreddage is Herz aus Glas. Closely followed by LT-LN. And of course the Amon Duul records he plays on.

I need little encouragement to do those little bagpipey pull-off/hammer-on flutters he loves so much

Also this (Nosferatu OST) is such a bizarre three headed PV item. You've got eastwest chamber vuh, haunted electronics florian, and majestically strumming Danny all on one platter.

I might guess that after bruder des schattens was scrapped for the film, fricke went ahead and stitched the new OST together from odds and sods? Or even bibs and bobs?

How do the Wah Wah vinyl reissues rate, sound wise? I just ordered a few and may get some more.

anyone here actually read the popol vuh book? you know, the mayan one?

― tylerw

I've read the book, but outside of a handful of songs I've only heard the band's soundtrack albums. What's a good starting point for their other work?

You should hear Heart of Glass or Eins/Siebenjager imo. I think you'd like the Fichelscher-heavy stuff.

Also I think the sound on the reissued LPs is pretty great, but I'm so accustomed to listening via headphones that it was nice to just hear the records being played in a room.

Thanks, milady. Will start with those two.

I guess one of those is a soundtrack album but you should listen to it again.

can someone explain to me the appeal of this band?
is there a chance for a person who don't like Ambient to like them?

There's a sampler from the spv reissues ineptly titled "70s Progressive Rock" maybe that's a good taster.

Xpost yes indeed just try the ones LL just named

is there a chance for a person who don't like Ambient to like them?

yes, because many of their records are not "ambient" -- try anything between 73 and 76 -- i think someone looking for not-ambient PV could find a lot to like in there

again, one of the things that i like most about this band is their use of rhythm even when the rhythmic elements aren't foregrounded. it's difficult (impossible for me) to ignore the role of rhythm in PV, even when it's very very very slow.

thanks!
xpost

also Letzte Tage, Letzte Nächte: i heard Last Days Last Nights which sounds like Amon Dull only spacier

Anyone who likes the Fichelscher years and hasn't heard Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee needs to listen to it immediately.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4USsLGeadwg

About 15 or 20 years ago a bought a big pile of PVuh CDs off a friend (for £2 each!), so I can never remember which album is which as I heard them all at the same time. I just think of them in the same way I think of 1970s Miles Davis, as basically one long song spread over 15 albums or so.

nosferatu is really boring, post-that is especially dire, check out "sei still wisse ich bin" if you don't believe

― the late great, Tuesday, December 31, 2013 3:11 AM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

voted "sei still wisse ich bin"

― Eats like Elvis, shits like De Niro (Tom D.), Friday, January 3, 2014 4:34 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Me too!

That was on Klaus Schulze's label and ran at 45rpm, my copy of it was a terrible pressing iirc.

Hey just wanna say thanks folks, all recs noted and welcome!

from my little knowledge, i'll vote to Letze Tage:

awesome album that takes the Ash Ra Temple/Amon Duul thing into a new level of proto-dream goth pop.
(Einsjäger & Siebenjäger is too proggy to my taste and i'm not an ambient fan)

Voted Sei Still, too! It's the most otherworldly to my ears and I think the choral stuff + massive digital reverb is a positive addition to the overall PV aesthetic. Einsjager and Letze Tage came close, though.

I listen to a ton of Popol Vuh and would love to take more of an active role in this thread, but thinking about their music for me is like trying to recall a dream. I remember experiencing it but beyond the vague feel of it I can't really describe what happened.

Actually I mostly listen to them lying in bed so that might be the reason.

haha

that's what i meant about the headphones vs LPs -- listening to this music in a room with people other than myself present is a pretty new phenomenon.

kind of shocked how little love Hosianna Mantra is getting. Heart of Glass is my second favorite so I get where you all are coming from, but HM is so incredibly beautiful.

i agree. it was the second album of theirs i heard after garten and remains one of my favorites.

I voted Hosianna!

Um, any love for Yoga? I must give it a second listen one of these days (note: the first listen was decades ago).

Listening to a lot of these again, I like Seligpreisung a little less than I remembered and Einsjäger & Siebenjäger a lot more than I remembered.

i've never heard yoga.

Quoting from an interview Fricke gave to Eurock.com: "YOGA is an unauthorized release. Some Indian musicians visited me in my studio, and somebody else took the tapes and sold them under the name of Popol Vuh, but it had nothing to do with Popol Vuh, really. I'm playing harmonium, and organ. I think it was released in Italy."

Maybe this is off topic (this being a poll, and there being a s/d thread already), but is there any decent (non-web) literature out there on this band? I know there are a few Fricke anecdotes in the Herzog book, and I'm sure Cope talks about Popol Vuh in Krautrocksampler (which I've never actually read), but has there ever been a sort of Our Band Could Be Your Life kinda thing about this scene?

There's this, about which I know nothing:

http://www.amazon.com/Krautrock-Cosmic-Rock-Its-Legacy/dp/1906155666/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389139516&sr=8-1&keywords=krautrock

i still haven't gotten over the cover art for the second album

Aside from reviews of some of their albums there isn't much about Popol Vuh in Cope's book.

There are so damnably few resources on PV and Fricke. Maybe in German...?

For about a decade when the CDs were expensive and hard to get (in the nineties up to file sharing) my PV bible was the little write ups of all the discs in the (print) forced exposure catalog.

I memorized those and dreamed of what the music would sound like.

Not exactly non-web literature, but this is worth a read : http://www.furious.com/perfect/populvuh.html

I remember our v. own Tom D doing an excellent Popul Vuh alb rundown somewhere on this board

Feel like a bit of an outlier on this thread, in that while I like most of the PV recs I've heard, Einsjäger & Siebenjäger is by some distance my fave - such an uplifting rec

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

btw if anyone is still looking for copies of those Wah Wah reissues, Fusetron just listed a few!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Winner is sorta shocking here! The rest makes sense except for 0 votes for Seligpreisung and Cobra Verde.

Aw, Agape Agape deserves more than 0.

the winner is the album most pick tbh

Really? Ah, man, I like those first two but, err...had no idea people rated IDGP so highly. I should listen again.

It's the second side -- it's totally grandiose and captivating.
Respectable choice!

Glad my two favorites were tied in votes too.

I bought Seligpresung and have been listening to it! But while it is pretty, it didn't move ahead of Aguirre or Heart of Glass for me.

Seligpreisung that is

Yeah, I remember liking that one more than I did when I listened to it again recently

I'm glad someone else likes Messa di Orfeo!

Kind of surprised "In Den Gärten Pharaos" won this tbh. Anyway I came here to say "Meditation" by Eberhard Schoener sounds very like that early electronic side of Popol Vuh, which is not that suprising as it was recorded in the same studio Popol Vuh used, on (I'm almost certain) the same equipment, some of the sounds used are pretty much identical.

I guess In Den Gärten Pharaos (and Affenstunde) stand alone in the catalogue; people who like that electronic side of the band have only those to pick from, whereas the remaining records feel like variants on a different template (whether vocal or instrumental, rocking or contemplative).

Of the eleven I've heard, I might pick Letzte Tage - Letzte Nächt for its concision and breadth.