Popol Vuh: Einsjäger und Siebenjäger

I was schmoozing at one of those Social Media networking events yesterday evening (forgive me!), and, of course, I end up talking about The Book and all things digital. So people (of our age) start going, "Oh, well, actually I like vinyl with gatefold sleeves and physical product and, and, and". And when I say, "well actually, in the early hours of this morning, I was listening to some German prog rock on headphones on vinyl on my 27-year-old turntable," they act surprised. Like just because I take digital seriously and I can programme my own listening experiences now, that means that I'm going to abandon the old experiences? For the 213th time, it's not either/or, it's both-and.

Mint condition, it is: both the sleeve (still in it's cellophane covering, with £6.49 Virgin sticker) and record itself — an import from Germany's Ohr label (Kosmische Musik, ja) and the disc itself. Got to be worth something, hasn't it? More than £6.49, I mean. Hmmm, not sure what to make of these listings, but here's a full listing of the releases, indicating that mine is the 1975 version.

I got this a few years after the Popol Vuh records that I imported personally in 1983 (1, 2). The way I remember it is that I read the acknowledgements in Hounds of Love that prompted me to re-engage with PV, and I bought this in the Virgin Megastore that summer of 1985.

At the time I was disappointed, but, once more, this is music that may have sounded dated in the age of Live Aid and the Style Council — but now it seems timeless once more. Was it just the late hour or are those compositions with their interlocking piano and electric guitar an affecting lure to prayer?

There's very little singing on this record, but such as there is is sung by Djong Yun — I thought she only appeared on Hosianna Mantra, but evidently I was wrong.

MusicBrainz entry for this album Wikipedia entry for this album Rate Your Music entry for this album