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May
04

Open Haus
Ambient Fields
(Infinity Sessions)

Popol Vuh

Summary

Where

Reethaus

When

Sunday, May 04, 2025
14:00-20:00

What

Listening Experience

This event is part of the Friends of Reethaus annual pass.

On May 03 and 04, during Berlin Gallery Weekend, Reethaus presents a hierophanic journey through the sonic world and archives of Popol Vuh, the German pioneers of ambient music and progressive electronica.

This immersive sound journey, adapted for the 360-degree spatial sound system of the Reethaus inner chamber, revolves around of key elements of Popol Vuh’s output over two decades, highlighting the Moog synthesizer albums of the seventies, original soundtracks of Werner Herzog’s iconic films, the devotional magnum opus Hosianna Mantra, and previously unreleased piano solos.

In 1969, Florian Fricke got his hands on one of the first Moog machines to enter Germany and named his musical project after the ancient Mayan codex whose name means “book of encounter.” Most of the defining ingredients of Popol Vuh were contained in that early gesture: the creation of avant-garde electronic sounds, an interest in the sacred texts and traditions of every part of the globe, and a dedication to creating progressive formats for musical experience and exchange. Inspired by “stalactite caves, the archaic cries of Greek women at night, and dervishes,” Fricke and his 

collaborators created intricately instrumented music that seemed to hail from a planet of more fully realized beauty, in the process creating a string of cult records and giving rise to the kosmische musik and krautrock genres.

Over the course of a prolific working relationship, Popol Vuh scored more than ten of Werner Herzog’s films with expansive sonic landscapes to match the director’s cinematic ambitions. These soundtracks can be heard on Herzog’s monumental Amazonian works featuring Klaus Kinski — Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo — as well as the classic vampire gothic Nosferatu.

Fricke lived not so much the life of a touring rock star as that of a studio composer, enjoying time for his research. In the eighties, he and his wife developed a system of breathing techniques and somatic group singing practices that they called the “alphabet of the body.” Through this work he came to understand ancient mantras as musical codes that have come down to us through invocations  that the collective has repeated many times, gathering momentum of a consciousness field  along the way.

With these two back-to-back Popol Vuh shows at Reethaus, we honor an early titan of German ambient, progressive rock and a musical ethnographer of the mysteries.

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Popol Vuh

Popol Vuh, founded in 1969 by classically trained pianist Florian Fricke, was a pioneering force in German ambient electronica, trance and transcendental progressive rock. Initially experimenting with the Moog synthesizer on Affenstunde (1970), Fricke soon embraced acoustic instrumentation, crafting luminous, meditative soundscapes that continue to resonate. Iconic albums such as Hosianna Mantra (1972) and In den Gärten Pharaos (1976) presented Popol Vuh’s unique fusion of classical structures, modal harmonies, ethnic instruments, and spiritual intensity. From early on, Fricke was deeply involved in cinema, working with Werner Herzog to produce the soundtracks of his most memorable films and shooting his own films in the sacred landscapes such as Kailash, Tibet, and Mount Sinai, Egypt. Fricke remained the guiding force of Popol Vuh until his death in 2001, leaving behind a singular body of work that remains influential beyond the technological evolution of the electronic music scene.

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Credits

Courtesy Edition of Popol Vuh
Mixdown by Guido Hieronymus, Roland Appel, Jan Krause.

Ambient Fields (Infinity Sessions) has undergone a custom spatialization process by MONOM to adapt it to the omnidirectional sound space of Reethaus.