BRÜDER DES SCHATTENS - SÖHNE DES LICHTS

This is one isn't one of my favourite POPOL VUH albums although it's still very good.

The side long title track is the highlight here with it's medieval chants repeated over and over. Aboe eventually joins in as this continues until we get a change before 5 minutes as piano takes over. Acoustic guitar and sitar join in to help and this continues until electric guitar arrives after 9 1/2 minutes. A change after 16 minutes as the instruments become more pronounced until it settles down to end it. Quite a song. "Hore, Der Du Wagst" is pretty much piano melodies played over and over. It's a solemn tune. "Das Schoss Des Irrtums" is mainly acoustic guitar and piano throughout and it's brighter. "Die Umkehr" is mostly sitar, guitar and drums. I like the final minute the best when they lay off the sitar.

Worth buying for the title track alone. Intersting that this was re-issued under the name "Noferatu (Original Soundtrack)" and it has the same first four tracks except the first one is shortened to 5:41.Then they have added 10 more songs which rounds out all the songs on the soundtrack of this Werner Herzog movie.To confuse things more, there is another POPOL VUH record called "Nosferatu" which is like a shortened version of the other album with the same name. They were even released the same year. Go figure !

Popol Vuh - Brüder des Schattens - Söhne des Lichts (1978)

This is my first Popol Vuh record, and I really did not know what to expect. First of all this record has little to do with the Krautrock movement. I had to think for a while to find a proper description of this record, but this is the best I can do.

'A minimalistic version of Tubalar Bells, an amazing recorded instrumental album with warmth repetetive harmonic structures with an almost spiritual appeal, with some world-music influences'. The extremely harmonic (dis-harmonic moments are non-existent) approach of this album turns out to be a winner. The warmth of all instruments playing the same chords is the result of cummaliteve effect of the combination of friendly wavelengths. There are few different melodies within the songs, but they all sound gentle and relaxing.

Ok, so this album does not fit perfectly in the progressive rock genre. It's atmospheric music, perhaps even sound-scape like. Some people might be bored to death by it, but to others it might have a magical appeal. It's piecefull atmospheres are welcome for sure in my living room. One thing is for sure. All instruments are played with extreme precision and the recording is amazing. It's a great album, but I won't give it the four star rating. It simply isn't very progressive. If the discription given by me and the other reviewers got you interested this album is recommended. It's has a magical appeal. Three stars.

Brüder des Schattens - Söhne des Lichts is a compilation of tracks that were used in various film scores that Florian Fricke put together for Werner Herzog.

The first part of Brüder des Schattens is an alternate version of On The Way, the haunting opening music of the Nosferatu film. The addition of the oboe makes it more symphonic and less eerie. It's followed by a 15 minute acoustic improvisation "Söhne Des Lichts" which works nice as background music but that hasn't inspired me for dedicated listening.

The remainder of the album contains the vintage Popol Vuh 'rock' of Höre du Wagst and Die Umkehr, both sounding like they've been recorded during the Hohelied Salomos or Letzte Tage sessions. Der Schloss der Irrtums is a nice but rather static acoustic track, probably meant to create a hypnotizing effect but so far it missed me. The 2005 bonus track Sing for Songs Drive away the Wolves is a 90s re-recording of the original song from the 1977 Herz aus Glass score and sounds out of place in the acoustic atmosphere of the album.

All tracks from the original album feature on the 2004 reissue of Nosferatu (except for the Söhne Des Lichts part which you can get on other compilations). It makes this album entirely redundant but for dedicated fans. I'd give 3 stars for the music, but 2 stars when it comes to the necessity of having this title in your collection.

One of two albums derived from the sessions for the soundtrack to Werner Herzog's Nosferatu remake, this album presents a little too minimalistic a version of Popol Vuh to me. Without the shimmering layers of guitar and other embellishments, the songs sound like demos for a Popol Vuh album as opposed to fully fleshed out compositions, and drag on well after they have worn out their welcome. It doesn't help that the sound quality is rather fuzzy and indistinct, or that the songs don't really evoke a particular emotional atmosphere the way Popol Vuh's albums usually do. Very much an inessential addition to the Popol Vuh discography.