Popol

Herz aus Glas (subtitled "Singet, denn der Gesang vertreibt die Wölfe" [German for "Sing, for singing drives away the wolves"], French "Cœur de verre") is the ninth album by Popol Vuh. It was originally released in 1977 on Brain Records. In 2005 SPV re-released the album with two bonus tracks. This album was released as the original motion picture soundtrack of Heart of Glass (Original German title: "Herz aus Glas", French title "Coeur de verre") by German director Werner Herzog, but in fact only two tracks ("Engel der Gegenwart" and "Hüter der Schwelle") were actually featured in the film.

Popol Vuh's Seligpreisung is another essential work from the band, ushering in the classic middle period for which they are best known. The album represents the reconvening of the band after Fricke had contributed to Gila's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, after which he brought former Amon Duul II drummer turned guitarist Daniel Fischelscher into the fold of his main band. Fischelscher would become Fricke's main collaborator for what is essentially Popol Vuh's most intensely brilliant period, reaching a possible culmination in the subsequent classics Letzte Tage, Letzte Nachte and Einsjager & Siebenjager. In light of those later achievements, Seligpreisung still stands as a solid addition, if slightly more tentative…

Aguirre is the seventh album by German band Popol Vuh. It contains music used in the soundtrack to Werner Herzog's film Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), first released as an album in 1975 on Ohr, and reissued in 2004 by SPV with one bonus track. This score was the first of many filmic collaborations between the group and Herzog. Only two tracks ("Aguirre I" and "Aguirre II") are from the film; the rest were gathered from various recordings done by the group during the period 1972–74, including alternative versions of two songs ("Morgengruß II" and "Agnus Dei") originally released on the band's 1974 album, Einsjäger und Siebenjäger.

It Was 50 Years Ago Today are live recordings taken from Sveriges Radio and NRK's archives.

It begins with the sound of a sunny day for a few moments and then after a big splash and a few drips we go down the electronic rabbit hole into a listening wonderland. For their debut album, Popol Vuh are very much an electronic band, closer to the stranger parts of their score for Aguirre than to the beautiful, almost classical music they would soon embrace. Here they are conjuring strange dreamscapes out of their analogue technology.

Released in 1974, Einsjäger & Siebenjäger (Earth & Sky) is a further rock entrenchment for Popol Vuh. Florian Fricke's piano is more percussively present with its runs and large chord voicings rippling throughout each composition. In addition, Daniel Fichelscher's electric guitar picks up where Conny Veit's left off, taking the bluesy space rock solo style into new territory by incorporating Eastern scales into the main body of his blues phrasing. There are five short compositions on the first side, which merely prepare the listener for the mind-blowing title cut, which takes up the entirety of side two. Here, in addition to the swirling organic percussion and pianism of Fricke and the loping, often singing guitar lines that repeat hypnotically with rock & roll tension, the vocals of the amazing Djong Yun become the catalyst for the other musicians to spiral off into extended improvisations…

Popol Vuh - Sei still, wisse ICH BIN (1981) {SPV 70242 CD rel 2006}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 204 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 94 Mb
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© 1981, 2006 Innovative Communication / SPV Recordings | SPV 70242
Rock / Ethnic Rock / Krautrock / Progressive Rock / Sacred Music

Recorded in 1980 and produced by Klaus Schulze, Sei Still, Wisse ICH BIN ("Be quiet, I am") is one of Popol Vuh's sacred music offerings. Like Hosianna Mantra nearly a decade before, this set is regal in its solemnity and in its intensity. Utilizing the Chorensemble der Bayerischen Staatsoper and the soprano saxophone stylings of Chris Karrer, Popol Vuh – down to a three-piece with vocalist Renate Knaup fronting the choir, Fricke on piano and voice, and guitarist Daniel Fichelscher holding down the drum chair as well, this is a huge recording.

2011 five CD collection from the German Krautrock band containing their soundtracks to five Werner Herzog films (Aguirre, Heart of Glass, Nosferatu, Fitzcarraldo and Cobra Verde) housed in a high-end limited edition box. In addition, this exclusive box set contains a 96 page-strong booklet designed by International DoubleStandards Berlin including unseen footage and images, conflating the world of both Popol Vuh and Werner Herzog through the soundtracks to some of Herzog's most acclaimed early feature films.

Alberto Ginastera left his massive orchestral piece Popol Vuh, which had been commissioned by Eugene Ormandy, unfinished at his death in 1983, and it was only after it was discovered by pianist Barbara Nissman that it had its premiere in 1989, with Leonard Slatkin and Saint Louis Symphony. A musical reimagining of Mayan creation mythology, it's a monumental piece that viscerally evokes a primitive world using both folk elements and sophisticated modernist techniques. The composer wrote that he was aiming for a "reconstitution of the transcendental aspect of the ancient pre-Columbian world," and the piece is fully successful at capturing that vision with music that is powerfully primal, strange, and darkly beautiful.