Popol Vuh

Fricke and the Moog

Popol Vuh, named for the Maya K'iche' creation text, formed in Munich in 1969 around Florian Fricke, born on February 23, 1944 in Lindau on Lake Constance, who studied piano, composition and conducting at conservatories in Freiburg and Munich and worked as a music and film journalist for the Sueddeutsche Zeitung. (A Norwegian band also used the name before becoming Popol Ace.) Around 1970 he bought a Moog III after assisting Eberhard Schoener at the 1970 Osaka World Exhibition, one of the first in Germany; it cost around 60,000 Deutschmarks, and his wife's wealthy family helped pay. He recruited Frank Fiedler and the percussionist Holger Truelzsch.

Affenstunde (1970, Liberty, through United Artists A&R man Gerhard Augustin) explored part of the Moog; AllMusic called it an auspicious debut, and Julian Cope described incredible sounds and sensations unlike anything prior to its existence. In den Gaerten Pharaos came in 1971, and Fricke told Keyboards in 1993 that on it he sought the human voice, then stopped playing the Moog, which Klaus Schulze took over. Fricke met Werner Herzog in Munich in 1966 or 1967 and played the pianist in Herzog's debut Signs of Life in 1968.

Hosianna Mantra to Aguirre

Hosianna Mantra (1972, Pilz) turned to acoustic, devotional music, with Conny Veit on guitar, Robert Eliscu on oboe, Djong Yun on vocals, daughter of the composer Isang Yun, and lyrics based on Martin Buber; Pitchfork gave a 2025 reissue 9.5. Daniel Fichelscher, formerly of Amon Duul II, joined in 1973 and shaped a rockier sound. Seligpreisung (1973), Einsjaeger und Siebenjaeger (1974), Das Hohelied Salomos (1975) and Letzte Tage - Letzte Naechte (1976) followed, then Herz aus Glas (1977) and Nosferatu (1978, for the 1979 film).

Later albums were Sei still, wisse ICH BIN (1981), the Fitzcarraldo soundtrack (1982), Spirit of Peace (1985) and Cobra Verde (1987), the last major Herzog collaboration, and in the 1990s Fricke returned to electronics with City Raga (1995) and Shepherd's Symphony (1997). Messa di Orfeo, a live audio-visual installation with Fiedler at Molfetta on September 20, 1998 and Fano on July 15, 1999, is regarded as the final album. Fricke died on December 29, 2001, aged 57, and the band ended; SPV reissued nearly all the albums in 2004 to 2006.

They played little live, among them Beatclub on April 24, 1971 and a Seligpreisung performance in the Baumburg church in summer 1973. Brian Eno said in Mojo in 1997 that the Herzog-film Popol Vuh music still sounds good because it is so undefended.