AFFENSTUNDE

As many of those early experimental albums, Popol's Vuh debut is mostly a hit-or-miss with progressive rock fans because of its unstructed nature. Even for many people who like Krautrock and Electronic Prog in some way, this might be difficult to enjoy.

It is interesting that, unlike other bands in the same situation, like Tangerine Dream and Kluster, which evolved in their way of doing the electronic prog albums, Popol Vuh remained in the progressive rock realm but with a completely different style.

Not wanting to go too much in what isn't in the album, Affenstunde is a high-experimental album with only Moog Synthesizer explorations and percussion. Considering the date it was recorded (1970), where analog synthesizers were only in form of big sets of knobs, swithces and cables, it is a great technical acheivement to be able to produce these sounds and be able to fill an entire album with them.

That said, most of the album consists in tuneless melodies that sound improvised. It feels like the purpose of exploring the synth capabilities than to using it to generated the sounds to play a composed song. The songs have long parts of drone sounds with some improvised melodies. The percussion sometimes gives a rhythmic feel to the long drones, sometimes are improvised as well, as if each musician was playing their own thing.

To be able to enjoy this album, one must like a very specific kind of music, experimental and improvisational. And, even for the ones who like it, there are some better albums out there (for example, the second Popol Vuh album). So, while I enjoy it, I'd recommend this album only to those who have an idea of what to expect.