s/d popol vuh

what's the deal with 10 minutes of "Brüder Des Schattens" just being lopped off on all the Nosferatu releases? it's not like there isn't room for it. weird how nearly all the PV soundtracks are like 25% retreads from other albums, 25% aimless Moog stuff, and 50% the most beautiful music you've ever heard in your life

Apparently Herzog used to rummage around in tape boxes to find bits of music that fitted what he was after. Almost all of the music in Herz aus Glas isn't from the Herz aus Glas soundtrack but from the album before it, for instance.

The moog stuff in Nosferatu was almost certainly recorded in the early 70s and not recorded for the film itself.

one of the tracks is just an excerpt from "Vergegenwärtigung" from Aguirre - which is also (I assume) not in the film. (the original Vergegenwärtigung, not the one that cobbles together stuff from a previous album)

isn't there a site which sorts this all out? back in the old days of the internet there would've been a www.popol-vuh.freak which would break down the lineage of each album in 30,000 words

The bonus tracks on their CDs are all over the place, there's no indication of when anythinng was recorded and the titles are often totally misleading.

I was wondering abt that, I have some weird ones from a CD version of the 1st LP

This is a defining feature of Popol Vuh — there are really only a handful of motifs that keep emerging in different forms in different places.
There are outliers (LT-LN for example) and I feel like its bc they’re heavily Fishelscher.

Here's a PDF I've consulted to make more sense of what's on which record, what is a remix/repeat from earlier albums, what pieces are in which film, etc.:

http://www.venco.com.pl/~acrux/misc/disc7.pdf

oh wow...that is a lot to sift through

and yeah sleeve if you're talking about "Train Through Time" on Affenstunde that is an all-time weird bonus track. not only was it actually recorded for the LAST Popol Vuh album (3 decades later!) but it also sounds nothing like any of the other material on the album

there is also this perfect sound forever article that is quite detailed -there are 4 parts to it

That document I linked to is a little deceptive on the subject of Nosferatu, because it was released with two different running orders, and they get the two mixed up.

sorry, link didn’t post, but it’s on the furious.com website

xxxp to frogs, yes that one and the "Dream Part x" series

I've been meaning to reorganize my Vuh stuff on my music server but have sorta got fond of the chaos

Just gave Cobra Verde a spin for the first time in years. For an instrument that cost a quarter of a million at the time, the Synclavier sure does sound like a piece of shit doesn't it? They just about manage to make a listenable record anyway despite the synth pads.

got the first volume of the box sets for christmas. so psyched

enjoy. it sounds amazing, way better than the MP3s I was listening to. hope vol. 3 is coming soon.

Been on a big Popol Vuh kick lately, but it's weird how like half of their albums are relatively easy to find, while the other half are a lot tougher (specifically prompted by looking for a CD copy of Letzte Tage – Letzte Nächte that doesn't cost north of $50).

https://www.discogs.com/sell/item/2367863446 ?

I guess $35 is less than $50, still a lot...

for sure, I paid $10 in 2013 for that same edition

yea like a lot of overtly spiritual musicians who don't tend much to the business side their catalogue is a total mess. I never gave any thought to actually collecting the physical products until the recent box sets, which are not only very well pressed but also somewhat "definitive", assuming there's a 3rd and 4th one to come

But even those boxsets skip around a little bit, no?

they do but I think that's fine because PV doesn't really have 'eras' to me, each album is sort of its own thing and a lot of them incorporate elements of past albums. so like the first one has the Aguirre & Nosferatu soundtracks on it, which incorporate elements of Einsjager and Affenstunde, so it makes a little sense to put them altogether. Hosianna Mantra is also on there just to bridge the gaps a bit. idk I'm fine with it so long as they eventually get everything together.

Yeah, my complaint is more minor, it's just interesting to see which of their albums are in plentiful supply and which aren't. When I decided to check them out more closely a few years ago, I didn't even have to go out of my way to get the first five I bought (Aguirre, Nosferatu, Affenstunde, Einsjager and Hosianna), but I've really slowed down since and stumbled across a used copy of Sei still, wisse ich bin in Michigan a few months ago.

But since then I only find copies of those same five albums. I don't think I've ever even seen Letzte Tage – Letzte Nächte in the wild at all.

I am still grateful to la lèchera for hooking me up with the Spalax edition of Letzte Tage which to me sounds much better than the remasters

:) that one remains one of my all time fave albums

i am satisfied with my current state of Popol Vuh releases

I have everything up to "Brüder Des Schattens - Söhne Des Lichts", what else should I check out? Cobra Verde? Fitzcarraldo?

and man you wanna talk about a discographical mess, crosscheck the various bonus tracks between editions if you dare

TBH I almost never listen to those two but I do like Agape-Agape a LOT

ty!

Sei still, wisse ich bin is really good too, imo

Yeah I dig that one quite a bit, was happy I found it.

noted, hey the 2017 Wah Wah version of that isn't insanely expensive!

yea I mean Aguirre alone - a bunch of Side A is alternate takes from Einsjager, Side B is a long discarded track from the Moog era called "Vergegenwärtigung", but later editions replaced it with 3 other tracks from later albums, though on the CD it's still one long track called "Vergegenwärtigung". some editions have "Aguirre III" and others have the 3-part "Spirit of Peace" on it. very little of this was actually in the film, though one of the tunes that was (the bit at the end of the first title track) isn't even listed on the sleeve. so what, exactly, would the definitive edition be??

This is from Agape-Agape and has the slow burn propulsion I love in this band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2WMsM-c4bY

Agape-Agape is good but the production is just so lo-fi, I don't know what that was about.

Sei still, wisse ich bin is really good too, imo

^^^

fourth'd

just got the 2nd box. wow Seligpreisung is really good. sounds like Magma attempting Hosianna Mantra. sure wish Djong Yun was on it though!

I love Seligpreisung. It sounds to me like a jammier Obscured By Clouds-era Pink Floyd. Fricke's vocals are definitely the weakest thing about it. I don't actually mind them that much, but I would have preferred Djong Yun to sing it too. But it's all good because we have Das Hohelied Salomos for that. I recently treated myself to a clean OG German vinyl pressing of that one for my birthday, and I couldn't be happier with it. I love everything about that record, down to the whimsical/menacing cover art--spiritual psych perfection.

i adore that record.

hosianna mantra

This thread is ilm at its best innit: knowledgeable, obsessive, in love with its subject in a way that can only make you go wandering.

Don't think it's actually linked here, but ended up at the 1996 Edw1n P0uncey interview this morning. https://popolvuh.nl/archive/bibliography/34-archive/bibliography/180-my-strange-life-florian-fricke-interview

That's a great read, thank you!

irl lol:

FF - Sometimes I think about this. There's only one person in Germany I like (except for Gerhard!), to sit together with him. It's Boris Becker! He's a good man. My son knows him. And he's sung for the disco

Hehehe.

Also liked:

GA - Have you ever been in England, Florian?

FF - Yes, I was very early in London in the 1960s .. .l met some people, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown. The London 'underground' scene ... the Pink Floyd.

EP - Did you see Yoko in her gallery?

FF - No, it was private. It was terrible. The doors had no locks on them; there was a chair. The chair was half. I had claustrophobia. I need closed doors. And so the first doors I (whoosh) opened them up and then no possible more come out this terrible woman out of the room.