AFFENSTUNDE

"Affenstunde" is the debut full-length studio album by German experimental music act Popol Vuh. The album was released through Liberty Records in 1970. Popol Vuh was founded in Munich, Germany in 1969 and they existed until 2001 when band founder Florian Fricke died.

The music featured on the album is very minimalistic and ambient with very few highs and lows throughout the tracks. The album consists of two side long compositions. The 21:05 minutes long "Ich Mache Einen Spiegel" ("I make a mirror") and the 18:57 minutes long title track. "Ich mache einen Spiegel" is sub divided into four parts.

Except for some percussion every sound on "Affenstunde" is created by the Moog III synthesizer and stylistically "Affenstunde" is best described as an ambient experimental rock album. The rock part of that description is a bit wrong through, as "Affenstunde" doesn´t feature anything resembling a regular rock song or rock instrumentation of drums, bass, and guitars. This is either slow, repetitive drones of sounds, or percussive with what sounds like random improvised percusion parts ("Ich Mache Einen Spiegel - Dream part 5"). I´d be surprised if Popol Vuh had anything composed when they entered the studio. This all sounds very random and made up on the spot.

That´s not necessarily a bad approach and there is a lot of great improvised music out there, but honestly this feels like a bit of a scam. I understand that it was a groundbreaking release back in 1970, but to my ears it´s a hard listen and very difficult to set through without becoming increasingly impatient and wondering when it will end. I´m actually not saying this to be disrespectful towards Popol Vuh or their musical vision, but in my world respect goes both ways, and for Popol Vuh to release something like this it shows that they have no consideration for people spending money on their music. The only point during the album´s playing time where you hear something resembling something composed is on the title track. After 7 minutes of ambient noodling, suddenly what appears to be Popol Vuh´s version of a melody is played for the rest of the song. It stil sounds like a pretty rendom far east influenced melody being played over and over again in different improvised variations, but at least there is something to hold on to.

So upon conclusion "Affenstunde" is pretty surely an aquired taste. I´m pretty sure very few music listeners will find this an intriguing listen and visit it often, but of course that´s my subjective opinion and others may feel different about the album. To each their own I say and to my ears a 0,5 (10%) rating is warranted.

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