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The Soundtrack to Ecstacy
Florian Fricke was the man behind the band I referenced in my very opening post. In that blog – for those who didn’t read it – I stated that I intended to mention Popol Vuh as much and as often as I possibly could. I’ve kind of dropped the ball on that promise, but then who really gives a crap about promises anyway? My introduction to Popol Vuh is probably the same as damn near everyone else’s now days: through the films of Werner Herzog. In my particular version of the white-male-middle-class-indie-doofus-finds-Herzog tale, it was when I first saw the film Aguirre The Wrath of God. I watched it with guitarist extroadinaire, and neo-con apologist, Clinton Heider (current member of the Linus Pauling Quartet, the band which has my vote for Houston’s best, and guy who will kill me if he ever reads this) the very evening after we had returned from our marathon drive to Big Bend National Park. Any drive that long is sure to induce in me certain neo-psychedelic psychological overtones, and so when we went to the video store to rent some movies, something about the visionary quest in Aguirre struck a special note with us. In case you haven’t seen the film, it is simply unmatched in many ways. If you know of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, then you wouldn’t be too far off from the underlying thrust of Aguirre. But Herzog paints a singularly fevered vision of a descent into madness so devastating, it would be hard for anyone with half a brain to not be moved by it in some way. Picture Conquistadors in South America, lost on a river, led by a madman (played a little too well by Klaus Kinski, the Mike Gunn’s muse), heading for their inevitable and rather dramatic doom. It’s fucking mesmerizing stuff. And beneath this entire epic is the soundtrack that was created by Fricke, and by extension, Popol Vuh. It’s a match made in heaven. It is this very music that has haunted my brain ever since. It is at once, ethereal, spectral, dense, melancholy, and on, and on… Fricke’s use of the Mellotron (one of my favorite instruments) to create an oceanic chorus of slightly alien female timbre is classic and timeless. The first ten minutes of the CD are simply monumental, and without fail, always satisfying to me no matter where I am in my life. The aforementioned choir slowly fades in and eventually takes over my consciousness and leads me into a more thoughtful and introspective (if you can accept that I can even be more introspective than I am already) place. It’s simple to the point of being almost rudimentary, and at the same time, it is a transcendant piece of music. Later in the CD is a solo section for piano that kicks my ass every time. It’s slow, simple, and gently plucked out; comprised mostly of single note runs, and subtle, skeletal chords; this section of the album draws my attention directly back into focus after the otherwise disembodied exaltation of the rest of the recording. It is this current of spiritual searching and joyful expression that carries through the Popol Vuh catalogue and their many incarnations. And while Popol Vuh is primarily known for their collaboration with Werner Herzog, they are by no means primarily a band that existed for the sake of fulfilling a director’s whimsy. You know, as I go back and read over this, I am struck with how uninteresting this post is, and so for that I apologize. Doug’s last post and the accompanying comments show the way that many people probably feel about reviews, and I guess I just wanted to try and explain in some way how much this particular band has affected me despite the obvious problems with this idea. I am by no means a completist on Popol Vuh, but what I have enjoyed simply resonates on a special frequency with me. I associate certain pieces of music with certain feelings, and the Aguirre soundtrack, along with In Den Garten Pharoahs, never fails to move me. I’m going to stop now as I am making myself sick. When I think about the idea of taking a once weekly look at something that for me is so much an inextricable part of who I am, I realize that it is rather daunting on several levels. For one, I am not one to insist on much about music. I like what I like, but always with the wide-eyed blankness of a child. I never want to be too exclusive of anything. Out of the seven of us, I probably am the most intrigued by the one who has the least to say. Heidi may simply have too much of an actual life to wither away in here, or she may just have the sense to let the rest of us prattle on about whatever it is that gets us all goofy inside. I know she’s no slouch when it comes to music, as her rare comments will attest (her liking of the Mike Gunn not withstanding, hell, even she wasn’t sure why she liked us), so I hope to one day have such pointedly brief but strong things to say. This observation might help point one in the direction of my particular pathology, though it will have to be one of your choosing. (What? You thought I was just going to hand it to you?) l’ll put it like this. If you love music, and you play the hell out of it all the god-damn time, then you know why I feel so strong about Popol Vuh. I don’t need to sit here and wax hyperbolically about why you should get into them. Your own feelings for some other piece of music should lead you in the right direction. I just wanted to expose a little bit of my humanity and connect in a way that makes you, dear reader, enjoy the impression that you know me in some sense deeper than on a purely superficial level. I guess I just hate being misunderstood almost as much as I hate superficiality. I’ve made a big deal about my self-motivated seclusion, and yet Rosa has accurately commented on my propensity to air my personal demons more than, say, your average egomaniac perhaps might, so maybe this is a way that I can communicate comfortably my thoughts without letting anything get in the way. As our own little corner of the music/electronic world, I will always hope that we can air that which makes us breathe and that which makes us feel like something actually matters at the end of the day. Florian Fricke ushered in a way to do just that. 28 comments to The Soundtrack to Ecstacy |
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I certainly hope I didn’t have a chilling effect on people talking about music that they feel passionately about. I certainly didn’t feel that your comments were uninteresting; in fact, they both gave a sense of the music and your response to it, which is all I can hope for from a review. My piece was more borne of several frustrated ideas on how to write a piece about an album that I love, and realizing that I thought they all sucked.
I love Herzog films, but have never investigated Popul Vuh further. I need to rectify this gross injustice. Have you seen WILD BLUE YONDER or THE WHITE DIAMOND, which make use of Ernst Reisjeger extensively?
I have seen White Diamond, but not Blue Yonder. I’ll have to (re)investigate. A few years ago, I picked up a bootlegged copy of a number of his collected documentaries, including the one about the auctioneer, the ski jumper, the people at the foot of the volcano, and a few more. That is one amazing tape.
Well, I am probably the only person here who didn’t get to the Popol Vuh via Herzog. I actually found one of their records in some used record store and bought it on the name only (I like to support references to Latin American aboriginal cultures and Popol Vuh, as I hope you all know, is the Mayan creation myth). I think it was the Garden of Pharaos and I used to love playing it when i was alone at home, and it was very meditatitve, definitely something spiritual going on there, but I didnt immediately make the connection to Herzog though i had seen a couple of his movies at this point (probably Aguirre and Kaspar Hauser). It wasn’t until I watched some other Herzog movie that I started thinking the music sounded familiar and eventually made the connection.
And I can’t think of a better time to watch Aguirre than after driving the ungodly road from Big Bend. I did that one time and thought I had died. Really. Thought we’d had a car crash and i was in denial and i was going to be on that road for all eternity. It was pure hell.
I mention the above tape as a recommendation, which I forgot to do in my comment. If you haven’t seen those (I think they’re on DVD now), you really ought to check them out. No music connection, just great stuff.
Herzog has made the best documentaries i’ve seen. I get chills just thinking about the ski jumper one.
The Popol Vuh book (the one you reference Mr. A.), is one amazing book. I need to read it from start to finish soon. I always thumb through it at work and then forget to read it.
And can you explain your second link? Its like some protocols page?
Try it again, it’s just a link to view the CD on B&N dot com if anyone wishes to buy it (of course there are some wee samples on there).
Ok, got the link. By the way, I love it everytime you bring up Herzog. Thinking of him makes me happy. I never get tired of most of his movies even on multiple viewing. I could play in an infinte loop the opening scene in Kaspar Hauser with the wheat fields in the wind while Pachelbel’s Canon in D major plays in the background. It just makes me feel good.
Geez, John, I’ve just not been connected to the internet for two weeks. Give me some time to catch up and I’ll out-prattle you all yet.
Also, I have a stylistic problem when it comes to writing, that of preferring verbs much more than adjectives. This leads to rather terse descriptions or complete lack thereof. As I added at the very end of dd’s chain of comments, sometimes writing about music is like tasting architecture.
Thankfully, you are quite introspective when it comes to knowing and figuring out what makes you respond to music. I’ve gone through dry spells in which I’m simply not hearing music I like- and, it scares the shit out of me because I then wonder whether I’m enjoying anything about life at all. Weirdly, it’s usually through my friends’ enthusiasms that it all starts to come back.
I request that you be the first to make a podcast and that you include some Popul Vuh. I’m tired of all my music and would really, really enjoy hearing some. Thanks in advance.
I like everything I’ve watched by Herzog I don’t know why my netflix queue isn’t full of his stuff. I’m going to work on that now.
I recently watched Grizzly Man and then the little bonus feature about how the Richard Thompson music was recorded. Herzog’s influence on the recording session was sort of confusing and a little disturbing. Do you Herzog aficianados know if he often inserts himself into the music production so heavily.
I like how you guys are discussing the frustrations of cd reviewing. It’s certainly been a problem for me too. I lean towards the masked reviewer’s view to lead people towards the music which is often readily available on the internet save for those of us who work in cruddy office environments that don’t allow that sort of goofoffendome. With this goal you just have to write something simple yet interesting enough about the artist to get people clicking. I have to say though that DD and John have both successfully pointed me towards new music with their delightful prose.
damn… Remind me not to be the congressman you write hate mail to.
I remember your mention of Popol Vuh in a past column, and since I was in the process of changing out computers I failed to do any searching. I couldn’t remember how I had been exposed to Popol Vuh before, but made the connection today, via Amon Duul II and Faust.
My exposure to Herzog films is limited to be kind, and can’t say I have found the taste yet, but since you have been patient enough to punch us in the head with his name on a couple of occasions, I will do what I can to get my hands on some of his contributions to Earth. Is Kilian the only Netflix subscriber in these here parts?
Also, I am weeding through some Popol Vuh to download, but can’t get the image of naked and glistening hippies out of my head for some reason… in the days before “STD” even had a name… I am afraid of Liquid Sky. But, I have to thank you for setting up the stage for me to enjoy Die Kreuzen for lunch, which floods me with eerie memories… And also, I could buy that Popol Vuh was instrumental in giving me much of the music I have loved over the years by way of influence and foundation.. especially Severed Heads and Eno in the electronica realm… So thanks.
To be clear, on my own part… I am totally capable of misrepresenting myself, given that I am operating with one brain cell. I enjoy the prose and all the rest, that NAP drops in my LAP each day. I want and need reviews to balance my super imbalance when it comes to exposure. Yakkity Yak.
Also, I received a compilation from Anaconda that rocked me, so thank you! I especially liked 15,000 lives by Dexter Romweber which was like Cave/Presley and exactly what I needed.
Getting pounded by rain here. Time to shovel slush.
Youre welcome EM. And we have netflix here. Though we downgraded to 4/month.
Here’s how I would approach Herzog:
Kaspar Hauser or Strozek (these are almost meditative and very human movies, extremely beautiful in my view)
The dvd of the 3 docs john mentions (The Great Ecstasy of the Sculptor Steiner, How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck and La Soufriere). These are three killer docs.
Fitzcarraldo or Aguirre (these are his super macho movies, super human insanity and the victory of madness) if you watch Fitzcarraldo you might want to watch Burden of Dreams which is the doc about the making off Fitz.
Heidi, I would embark on the maiden voyage into the darkness that is our podcast page, but I too have no god damn idea how to do it. Slight moron problem, I’m afraid. If you want, e-mail me your address and I’ll burn you what I have of Popol Vuh. Actually, that goes for any of you bastards. Once someone schools me on the whole podcast deal, I’ll give that a whirl.
Make sure you get the Anchor bay DVD’s from Netflix, because they have all the director’s commentary which is often as good as the film he’s talking about. The only thing he’s made that I can’t recommend (I’ve seen almost all his stuff) is the last one with Tim Roth. That is a real stinker. Oh yeah, and Woyczek (sp?) isn’t that great either.
Do also check out Heart of Glass (entire cast was hypnotized), and Even Dwarves Started Small (entire cast is midgets and chickens). Dwarves, despite being horribly bizarre, is still as brilliant and valid as any of his other films.
Oh, and his remake of Nosferatu was great too.
I have been working on the podcast issue for the past couple of hours. I think I can set us up an initial podcast. If what I am doing works, which I think it will, I can take submissions of any audio, to add to a small tester compilation once I verify my attempts.
I think my approach can get us started, but have my reservations about bandwidth from my location and how it will affect the outcome.
Hopefully, I can return shortly with a link to a podcast for Nonalignmentpact..
Start thinking of your submission and keep it simple.
Please don’t let my attempts stall your efforts.. I am not TRON, but hope I can contribute this one thing.
Okay so, not happening overnight, but one of my good friends here, and bandmate, has sworn to help me deliver a viable community podcast option for NAP’s usage within a week. I have the time. I have the interest. If anyone wants to add or help guide me, I’m listening. It would be helpful to have an outline for NAP’s podcast goals… or ideal… Get me?
Ok… This is a whale… But a very nice whale.
Hey EM – we are considering some options on the Podcast thing. One is http://www.podomatic.com. This would save our bandwidth.
But let me include you in our e-mail discussions on this. Look in your e-mail soon.
I enjoyed Woyczech alright, but it wasn’t as good as his other Kinski-starred movies… I really need to branch out though, as I’ve never seen any of his non-Kinski movies… Dwarves and Heart of Glass do seem to be the two that keep coming up…
Hey John, any recommendations on Popul Vuh? I’ve already got Aguirre and In the Garden of Pharoahs, but have never bought anything else of his…
Charlie
my Herzog essentials: AGUIRRE, FITZCARRALDO, LESSONS OF DARKNESS, LITTLE DIETER NEEDS TO FLY, THE GREAT ECSTACY OF THE WOODCARVER STEINER, LA SOUFRIERE, GRIZZLY MAN, THE WILD BLUE YONDER, LAND OF SILENCE AND DARKNESS, NOSFERATU, MY BEST FIEND, STROSZEK, THE WHITE DIAMOND, FATA MORGANA, HEART OF GLASS.
There’s nothing I’ve seen that didn’t have some quality of interest, but those are my favorites. If I had to pick just a few, I’d probably say AGUIRRE, LAND OF SILENCE AND DARKNESS, and LITTLE DIETER are three great ones to start with. But LESSONS OF DARKNESS … and WILD BLUE YONDER … ah, hell, just see ‘em all. (Though I would agree that WOYZECK didn’t do much for me. Neither did KASPAR HAUSER, but I’m thinking I really missed the boat on that one, keen to give it another watch.)
There’s a 6-DVD set of documentaries and shorts out in Australia. Dying to pick that up.
I find Strosek devastating, personally.And Kaspar Hauser is also fantastic to me.
Hey Charlie, basically anything early is a sure bet. All the soundtrack stuff is good. Hosiannah Mantra, and Die Affenstunde are supposed to be highlights (I’ve only only heard parts). I have Hohelied Salomos, and it is a beautiful Krautrock/pop album.
The only Popol Vuh stuff I’ve heard is the Aguirre soundtrack. First at bookstop, thanks to one John Cramer, then on the film itself. I watched it during one of my twice-monthly work mandated 5:30 am bedtimes.
When I work night shift, I have to stay up the night before, so that I can get my circadian rhythm good and confused. I decided a while back that I could use these nights to catch up on films I should have seen. Aguirre was the first of these. Sheer brilliance. I was riveted, and terrified, the entire time. I kept waiting for Kinski’s hand to reach through the set and hurl me from my couch. This is one of those movies (and directors, I’m affraid) that I will only ever watch on such nights, as I don’t think my wife would appreciate the horror and beauty Herzog has to offer.
I currently have a good number of Herzog films waiting in my netflix cue, but have been holding on to season two of The Office (BBC), and The Office Special. Alas, this foundering is the fate of many netflix subscribers, from what I understand. This post has convinced me, though, that I must get through Ricky Gervais, and onto Fitzcarraldo, Heart of Glass, and Kaspar Hauser.
John: was your kind offer of Popol Vuh for the masses genuine? If so, I would very much like to take you up on it.
Yeah, John, I wouldnt mind some more Popol Vuh either. You got my vote for a popol-podcast.
And SoR, don’t deny your wife the opportunity to enjoy Herzog, though Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo are pretty visceral a lot of his other stuff, especially the docs can be great for the whole family. Maybe start with the Wheel on Time doc about the Buddhist sand mandalas. By far the best thing i’ve seen on Buddhist monks.
I think a Vuh-cast will be in order. If, young Raven, you wish, I can burn the stuff I have for you and just hand it over when I see you next. Your call. Douche.
I’ll say this one thing about podcasting. I have dial-up. It’s all I can afford. So my up/download capabilities are severely limited at best. In other words, I can and do want to contribute to a podcast, but a really regular commitment might be a bit of a stretch. I guess we’ll just see how it goes.
One other all purpose question. Does anyone in here know of a decent, affordable phono preamp I could buy for my turntable I just bought from Sound Exchange? I mistakenly thought my receiver has phono outs. I needed one anyway because I want to use it for burning my vinyl to disc through Ol’ Bessie Lou, my PC, for obvious reasons. So that functionality is part of it too. Let me know.
Man, I remember that Big Bend trip like it was yesterday. It’s funny how some incidents in my life cut through the drug and alcohol induced amnesia of the last two decades…this is one of them. Specifically, sleeping in a car in Del Rio because we couldn’t afford, or find, a hotel room. Trying to eat prickly pears. Leaving the house with not much more than a paper sack with a few cans of beans and a jar of peanut butter in it. Fishing at Amistad, catching absolutely nothing at all even as fish the size of pontoon boats floated by, laughing at us, wondering what roasted lizard tasted like, and, of course, the defining moment when we both simultaneously realized that the longer we stayed in Big Bend, the higher were the odds of one or both of us sleeping with the gnarly trailer-trash chicks at the adjacent campsite (the sight of them shaving their legs out in the open, while glancing suggestively in our direction, is a horror that will never be erased from my mind) – and of course, the nightmarish hell-ride in the dead of night on I-10, back to San Antonio – truckers on speed, surfing on a red sea of roadkill complete with ghastly ribs reaching up toward the sky, falling asleep at the wheel only to be awakened by the thump of an exceptionally large chunk of deer carcass, watching my hallucinations in disbelief as trees grew out of the road, the road itself closing in a curve around me.
Naturally, I was (like John) in a particularly receptive frame of mind when we returned to Houston, popped in the video tape, and Aguirre reared his fearsome visage. I have seen this film only once, but I’ll never forget Kinski standing alone, flinging one of the dozens of monkeys that had overrun his barge aside with an epic grunt of disdain for himself, his god, and his whole existence. Certainly one of the greatest, if not the greatest, moment I’ve experienced in cinema.
One reason I don’t watch a lot of movies any more is because I doubt I’ll ever see anything that good again…so what’s the point?
Carlos, it is true that my exposure to, and knowledge of, Herzog is limited, so I may be missing something my wife would dig. I tried to get her to watch Aguirre with me, but she didn’t seem to keen on watching an already crazy German float downriver on a raft, with very little “happening”, culminating in the monkey flinging scene Clinton mentions. That scene, alone, is worth the movie, in my book. I’ll have to give her a try on some of the friendlier stuff.
John, I would love some Popol Vuh burnination.
All – on a slightly related note, I came across Faust’s fifth (never released) record, in mp3 form, on WFMU’s Beware of the Blog a few weeks ago. The quality is rough, but it is certainly an interesting document. Just Google Faust and WFMU, and it should turn up.
Can’t really argue with that logic, Clinton. It’s funny how I remember all of that experience in a similar way. There was also the wildcat that was spotted on whatever trail we seemed to try and hike on, the winery in Del Rio, Fort Stockton, Marathon, getting lost in San antonio’s fucking nightmare of a traffic system, and the countless hours of discussion around one of our favorite topics at that time: Burger King’s Whoppers.
Hell yeah. I live for improvised road trips.
I think of the whole Whopper thing every time I see the losers in the Sonic drive-thru commercial. We totally could have pitched our concept to BK back then and made millions as pitchmen, replacing that creepy King guy. A cross country road trip in which we eat only Whoppers, and at the end grant an award to the very best whopper of them all. Sure, we would have died of heart disease at 30, but we would have been rich!
Yeah, rich and happy.