IN DEN GÄRTEN PHARAOS

After introducing the world to the possibilities of the Moog synthesizer and the spaced out sonicscapes on their debut album "Affenstunde," Florian Fricke led his unique band POPOL VUH to continue that sound and put out another even more spaced out sprawling two song epic album on IN DEN GÄRTEN PHARAOS (In the gardens of Pharaoh).

What we get here is an ambient morphing sonic sprawl that defies description really. This is highly experimental and consists of only African and Turkish percussion and the Moog synthesizer organ. No guitar, no bass, no weird exotic instruments. The title track has a more energetic percussion line serving as the backbone of the music while the mood of the Moog is simply to simulate a dream state where one is riding the clouds or something. The second track simply titled "Vuh" is a more placid affair but still takes you on a tripped out ride through the ethers.

Despite this album having very little in what I would call musical structure, for some reasons it works quite well. I find that pure ambient albums can be boring more often than not, but the subtle changes that occur on this album seem to be thought out and strategically placed to maximize listening pleasure. I do declare that it works out to be an astonishing success. After this album POPOL VUH would move on to a piano based compositional style and pass the baton of spaced out electronic music to Klaus Schulze who would continue and evolve this ethereal ambiance even further.