Popol Vuh - Vol 2: Acoustic & Ambient Spheres

Popol Vuh
Vol. 2: Acoustic & Ambient Spheres
(BMG)
8/10
By Paul Davies

There is a pin drop magic weaving its way throughout this absorbing and wondrous ambient collection of soundtrack and sound healing albums. Albums that for many reasons PV was destined to create. Not the out and out Krautrock entity of the parallel collection of musician groupings such as Can, Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk even. Yet Florian Fricke’s sonic freak show scrubs up magnificently well on this four-album vinyl compendium. Part musician, part yoga teacher, former music critic Fricke’s moment of clarity appeared upon encountering Frank Zappa’s music and the rest is alluring experimental musical history proven on this box set. There are varying landscapes of musical revelations two of which are developed around film soundtracks for Werner Herzog films Coeur De Verre (1977) and Cobra Verde (1987) that revealingly exist on their own as standalone albums. There is a hypnotic spirituality at the centre of these recordings which even for the uninitiated isn’t very difficult to discover.

Moving forward from the early Moog ruminations at their inception, 1983’s Agape-Agape displays the evolution of synthesisers on which Amon Duul II singer Renate Knaup gives voice to the instrumental investigations. This contrasts the progression of this pattern changing band with the group’s fourth album 1973’s Seligpreisung that is also presented here. Cruelly passing away at the early age of 57, there is a warning to the curious that this Florian Fricke led community of players will seduce and mesmerise the keen and open-minded new listener and is an essential addition to the already initiated.