43: Tangerine Dream - Electronic Meditation

FREE BALLOON! Nothing appeals to fans of kosmiche than a free balloon. What's that you're playing with? It's my Electronic Meditation Balloon! I don't know but I imagine that this was the only freebie you got with an Ohr release. I first heard this record via Bristol Library, again bizarre that this was in the catalogue but it was. I can't quite recall what I made of it but I remember enjoying it. I think I was aware of the later stuff and knew that this was very different.

There's a great flow diagram of the meditation process on the gatefold but suffice to say this is more Electronic than a Meditation. Way closer to Ash Ra Tempel than any other krautrock stuff - tons of wibbles and heavy organ. Great titles too - like video nasties: Journey Through a Burning Brain. It's a trip for sure, but not a particularly memorable one. Lashings of fuzz guitar, loads of ambience and some backwards vocals for merits.

It's a trip - a continuous trip and a complete one. Very distinctive and interesting - I can't put my finger on why I don't like it more. It seems at times too abrasive and too jarring and while it does make a whole it's quite a static whole - there's not really enough colour in there to make it worthwhile. And, apart from the Balloon and the backwards vocals, there's not enough humour or light to lift it. It's good, but not great.

42: Popol Vuh - Hosianna Mantra

The preceding record makes this one all the more perplexing. I don't think I got this one fully when I bought it - I was more into Pharoas when I was younger but now I'm starting to think that this is the real gem in the set of Popol Vuh records. There's not real point in describing each track since they all go into one anyway.

It's basically completly spiritual, totally outside of any of the other records in the book. There's no motorik, and it borders on trad classical music at times. Mostly piano and guitar, with the occasional oboe and Djong Yun's stunning vocals drifting all over the top of it. Cope describes it as sounding like it was recorded in a retreat which I totally agree with. It sounds like the lake from Pharoas.

I didn't buy Affenstunde when I was picking up the first round of krautrock, and know I'm torn between that and this as being my favourite Popol Vuh's. They don't sound like krautrock and at times they don't sound like music. It's a stunning record.

41: Popol Vuh - Einsjager und Siebensjager

Falling behind again. This was always a bit of a weird one in the Popol Vuh canon and I never quite got it when I first bought it and I still find it perplexing. Cope put it in the wrong order which might explain it a little but it does feel like it's leading towards Hosianna Mantra rather than coming from it.

The artwork is horrific but it's an official Cosmic Courier release now. The first side is a bunch of shortish tracks with guitar and piano. It's a bit too un-cosmic for my liking and veers into plod rock on occasions which is never a good thing. Too hit and miss. The second side is a standard 20 minute track but again with too much rock influences. I'm aware that they could no longer plow the 20 minute psychouts they did previously but this feels like a completely different group.

It does make me wonder just how he picked out these records - surely the missing Amon Duul record is better than this? There's not much krautrock in this record, and it's not off the wall like Rastakrautpasta but it's just a little bit boring.

40: Popul Vuh - In Den Garten Pharaos

Popol Vuh played large in my teenage years. Krautrocksampler aside, my number one squeeze of the time, Flying Saucer Attack, had tracks titled Popol Vuh 1, 2 and 3 I believe. There's not much of connection between the two bands, though clearly FSA felt that there was. I can remember purchasing this record from the legendary Revolver records in Bristol. I approached the counter with this and the first Third Eye Foundation record on Linda's Strange Vacation. The guy in the shop told me that there was a connection between the two. I can remember looking at the sleeve on the bus home to Wrington, trying to figure it out. There's certainly three people in the band:

Who the lady is I still don't know - the mysterious Gertig? Who's credited with Regie in Studio? Or Bettina credited with production? Then there's this picture:

Which strangely sums up the Popol Vuh ethos - two weirdy hippy types hanging out by the lake.

So In Den Garten Pharoas: Two tracks, one title track (18 minutes) and one called Vuh (20 minutes). The title track is stunning, waves lapping at the shore of the lake - congas and wailing synths. It shifts around a bit, sometimes more about drums and sometimes more about the synths. It's beautiful and like the great 20 minute songs, never outstays it's welcome.

My version of this record is a later repress on Bernhard Mikulkski, which weirdly rebadges the inner sticker as a Kosmischen Kuriere record despite it being on Pils. Discogs confirms that the original has a Pils inner.

Vuh is the krautrock tour de force. Huge organ drones and cymbal crashes for 20 minutes, a bit of a choir. The organ is from Baumberg according to the sleeve - not sure if they recorded it at the church but they could well have done. It's a huge wall of drone, a spiritual clash. This feels way longer than 20 minutes, like 20 hours of your life passes as you lose yourself in the noise. It's bizarrely impressive and I can't really think of any other group that could pull this one off.

39: Popul Vuh - Affenstunde

I don't even know what Popol Vuh is. Impossible to describe - especially the early version, again - outside of any convention or any reference point or any kind of music heard before or after. Affen Stunde - Ape Hour according to Google, Monkey Hour according to Cope. Never bought it, never seen it, never been that bothered. I have an odd relationship with Popol Vuh. I love them to death but I don't find myself drawn to them, at least not previous to this project. I fear that may change in the great krautrock re-evaluation.

So Affenstunde, like the best Kraut is two 20 minute tracks, the first being in the mould that follows and titled "Ich mache einen spiegel": I make a mirror. A mixture of watery splashes, leading into electro drone and bleepy ambiance with some frantic bongo action in the background. It breaks down into drumming half way through before returning to electronic whirs before disappearing off into the ether. The title track continues the electronic ambiance theme (and drums) but it's not ambiance without purpose - there's a deep method to madness. Nor is it avant or far out, it's just spiritual. Like Fricke is pouring out his essence onto the record and making it real through an electronic medium. It reads, and sometimes sounds like the worst kind of new age nonsense you've ever heard but as an album it really ties together. He takes you on this journey which from the outside appears horrifically pretentious but inside the moment feels like the most perfect glove.

So how does affenstunde fit into the krautrock life story? I don't know. The growing sense of the new and the reflection and re-understanding of life. Affenstunde makes the notion of pretention seem utterly redundant - that things that sound awful described can actually turn out incredible. Like Buckminster Fuller and his oustidely naff attempts to recreate the world, Popol Vuh create their world and it is wonderful. Soon I will live there and soon I will be one of the happiest people.