Popol Vuh appreciation!

 

I actually prefer the later, more acoustic albums but everything is worth hearing. I strongly recommend downlaoding the 18 minute title track of Bruder des Schattens... and the whole of Nosferatu except the 5 minute version of 'Bruder'. Too much to fit on 1 CD (which is why the track was edited) but a magical listening experience.

 

We were enjoying them when these came out and I can tell you that this was the new age in music ... that no one wanted to talk about.

 

It also featured ideas and processes that are not explained enough, or discussed with clarity and appreciated by an audience that only knows rock music and none of the other arts.

 

While their music is "wide" and "visual" ... you might want to visit the early Werner Hezog films and see how their music was used ... and it actually adds to the effect and visualization of how these people learned, saw and felt music ... something that is extremely difficult to get past with this "prog" audience here that can only discuss the merits of London and think the world is all bad and automatically not prog or appreciated for anything whatsoever ... and that which became known as "krautrock" was -- a result of the desire to expand a lof ot the feeling into something else beyond pop music ... to this day, Klaus Schulze and AshRaTempel -- their brothers in arms if you will are still doing totally free form anything meditations and ragas, that most rock audience folks can not appreicate, sit through, or ever give a solid listen to.

 

And if you like what Popol Vuh did, you will probably find the Klaus Schulze and Lisa Garrard DVD positively amazing ... and it was done live with no rehearsal!  Which is soooooooooooooo krautrock that it is insane, and it was Lisa that wanted it that way ... she KNEW!

 

Popol Vuh came up as a suggestion for me on emusic.com the other day.  Since then I've been practically glued to my ipod, obsessively listening to them!

 

I have almost all the albums, and I can not tell you which is best or better ... they are all good. I like the fact that it can go electronic, electric, folk ... meditational electronics ... and it still works ... and its spiritual edge is ... second to none ... but then, I'm not sure that most bands ever name themselves seriously ... EVER ... and like Amon Duul, Ash Ra Tempel ... the naming is as important as the music ... the rest is just frivolous stuff and that pretty much tells you how these people looked at their work ... this is not just rock ....  it's ART ... and inspired by the arts ... for the arts ... and WITH the arts ... which is something that most rock/progressive music doesn't give a poop about.

 

The early electronic albums are fantastic.  I especially love Vuh from In den Gärten Pharaos. But I'm liking the other, more acoustic, aethereal-sounding, dewy, spiritually-inclined stuff just as much.  Hosianna Mantra is just gorgeous!

 

If you have not already done so, these albums are also very good for guided meditations ... and I actually think that they were designed to be just that regardless of what the instrument and medium it came from was ... so if you would like to expand your meditational (AND listening) value ... this is really good stuff for it.

 

I've often said that Klaus Schulze is music for the ADEPT for this very reason ... the majority of people can not sit through 15, 20 and 30 minute long meditations ... and learn something valuable about themselves and music ... there is this feeling in academic circles that the feeling is not what creates music!

(I haven't a clue when it comes to Krautrock, so I wonder what else is out there, waiting for me to fall in love with it!   Someone needs to make a 'Krautrock drop-in' thread for the purpose of indoctrinating the unwary! )

 

The term is ... just ignore it ... but it does mean something quite extraordinary that the majority of arts and artists the world over never do, or try ... and for a couple of generations the film, theater, music and art in Germany was highly influential in a lot of circles ... specially rock music ... for in the end the only thing that "krautrock" was looking for was ... "get into the vibe of the music -- take the german hi-fi into the german sci-fi" ... and this is not something that conceptually can be done in the US, or in many places, where there is no history, or respect for the arts and their massive history ... and America with its top ten mentality is one of the worst killers of art ... to the point where they can not even respect a Frank Zappa ... and a lot of "krautrock" bands say that Frank was an influence ... which tells you how much some of these people know about music ... that "fans" don't usually know much ... they just like it ... and what inspired a lot of these kraut bands was the concept of mixing different things and expanding them ... and look at the results ... phenomenal ... but don't tell that to "proggies" ... it's not Genesis! ... it's just a bad book!