Popol Vuh, a band that continue to influence, have two of their classic albums remastered and reissued via Cherry Red Records.
Released: 24th October 2025
Label: Cherry Red Records
Format: Vinyl
Photo: Steffen Metzner, 1971
POPOL VUH
Popol Vuh’s music is a passageway. Yes, they emerged from the same German scene as Can, Neu! and Faust, but Florian Fricke’s vision always pointed elsewhere. Where others chased rhythm or disruption, Fricke sought transcendence.
Two albums, released within a year of each other, show the extraordinary range of that search: In den Gärten Pharaos (1971) and Hosianna Mantra (1972). Heard together, they trace a movement from monumental electronic ritual to hushed acoustic prayer. Half a century later, they retain their power and remain utterly contemporary.
IN DEN GÄRTEN PHARAOS
The second Popol Vuh album takes the Moog synthesizer and wields it like a sacred instrument. On the 17-minute title track, the tone spreads out gloriously. Percussion skitters and splashes, not in patterns but more in gestures. The pace is glacial, but the piece isn’t static; it breathes and shifts.
Then comes Vuh, recorded in a church and overwhelming in its intensity. The Moog’s drones echo like organ chords from some vast cosmic cathedral; cymbals erupt and crash, filling the space with thunder. It’s closer to ritual than performance. What’s remarkable is the humanity within this scale. Unlike the cosmic detachment of Tangerine Dream, or the machinic pulses of Schulze, Fricke’s music aches with yearning.
For context: In den Gärten Pharaos feels like a precursor to the monolithic weight of Sunn O))) or the grandiose crescendos of Swans. Both bands use sound as sheer physical presence; Popol Vuh were doing that in 1971, but with an overt sense of reverence rather than menace.
THE CHANGE
Having built a cathedral from electronics, Fricke promptly walked away. By 1972, the Moog was gone (he gifted it to Klaus Schulze) and in its place came piano, guitar, oboe, and, crucially, voice. The shift wasn’t cosmetic; it was more akin to evolution.
He assembled a new ensemble: Conny Veit on guitar, Robert Eliscu on oboe, and Korean soprano Djong Yun, whose crystalline voice would carry the music into new territory. The result, Hosianna Mantra, was as radical in its quietness as In den Gärten Pharaos had been in its enormity.
HOSIANA MANTRA
The opening piano figures of the title track arrive like dawn. Veit’s guitar interlaces in patterns that hint at both Bach and Indian ragas; Eliscu’s oboe moves through the spaces; and then Djong Yun enters. Her voice is truly astonishing. Stretching beyond twenty minutes, the piece feels timeless. Nothing rushes. Each phrase settles before the next rises, as though the music itself is breathing.
The shorter tracks; Kyrie, Abschied; maintain this spirit. They’re restrained, even fragile, yet never slight. Fricke pares the music back to essentials; no note is ornamental. It is extraordinary.
What’s striking is how effortlessly the traditions blend. There are hints of Renaissance motets, Eastern modalities, and sacred chants. This is devotion expressed through multiple tongues. Compare it with later spiritual minimalists like Arvo Pärt, or with the tenderness of Grouper’s voice and guitar meditations.
Even in unexpected places you can feel echoes. Consider Opeth, whose progressive metal often turns on a pivot between the crushingly heavy and the delicately acoustic. Albums like Damnation embody that tension. In a sense, Popol Vuh charted that territory decades earlier.
LEGACY
What makes these records endure is how directly they address the listener. In den Gärten Pharaos places you before something vast. Hosianna Mantra draws you inward, inviting stillness. Both resist being background music; they demand presence.
Popol Vuh are often remembered for their collaborations with Werner Herzog, but these two albums stand on their own as high-water marks of twentieth-century music.
It’s tempting to label one as electronic and the other as acoustic, but that misses the point. Both are about transcendence. Both are about seeking the sacred in sound. They remind us that music can still be an act of reverence rather than consumption.
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