The Crate Nerd: Popol Vuh
by Adam Ganderson
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There is music playing. A music that encompasses every emotion from fear to drowsiness, by a band with every instrument ever invented, played by musicians from throughout the world. Florian Fricke, of Popol Vuh, is talking to no one and everyone at the same time as the musicians walk in and out. They are not like the ones from the subway, but true masters of their instruments. And the women begin to arrive now. Beautiful women from unnamable places come to the garden where we sit. Some lay on pillows and some sing with the strange and beautiful music that plays from out of nowhere.
How weird, Florian looks like the Dalai Lama. No, that can’t be right; he’s German, from Munich. He’s changing again. He’s African now, now Mayan, now something else. There are Quiche Indians here. They are relating the story of the original Popol Vuh, “The Mayan Book of Creation.” The sky opens up and we are sitting in space with the planets and stars. Florian speaks the words I once read in an interview he gave: “My intention with Popol Vuh is to keep the soul in tune with time.” He rolls a pair of dice. They land in a pond and he goes in after them, then turns into a catfish and swims away. I’m alone now and someone is on the other side of the door. I’m frightened. Florian is, after all, the man behind soundtracks to some extremely creepy and brilliant Werner Herzog films, one being Nosferatu. I open the door slowly and standing there like an idiot is… Yanni?
So Yanni decided to ruin my dream. Thanks dude. Probably because some think that Florian Fricke and his band, Popol Vuh, invented New Age and, even worse, World music. But the music of Popol Vuh bears no resemblance AT ALL to the crap churned out typically by those genres. On the groundbreaking 1970 album Affenstunde Fricke became one of the first musicians to use a Moog 3 synthesizer. For this reason he is also credited with the invention of all electronic music, from ambient to techno. But Fricke, in fact, utilized many instruments in creating the amazing sound that spanned over 30 albums.
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