Heart of glass — Popol Vuh score Herzog again. Herz aus Glas is Popol Vuh’s soundtrack to Werner Herzog’s dreamlike 1976 film of the same name, and another chapter in the long friendship between the director and Florian Fricke. Released in 1977, it belongs to the shimmering, acoustic phase of the band.

The short version

The ninth album by Popol Vuh, released in 1977 on Brain Records; seven tracks, around thirty-three minutes. It is the soundtrack to Werner Herzog’s strange, hypnotic 1976 film Herz aus Glas, or Heart of Glass, and another product of the long partnership between the director and Florian Fricke. As with their Aguirre score, only a couple of tracks actually appear in the film, the rest recorded around the same time. Built on Daniel Fichelscher’s shimmering guitar and Fricke’s flowing piano, with guest sitar and flute but no vocals this time, it is a reflective, spacey and quietly beautiful record.

Scoring Herzog again

The friendship between Florian Fricke and the film-maker Werner Herzog, begun with the Aguirre score, ran through many of Herzog’s films, and Herz aus Glas is one of its finest fruits. Herzog’s 1976 film is among his most unusual, a slow, dreamlike tale set in an old Bavarian glassmaking village that loses the secret of its precious ruby glass, famous for the near-trancelike state in which much of its cast performed. Popol Vuh’s music suits that mood perfectly. As with Aguirre, the album is only partly a true soundtrack: just two of its pieces actually feature in the film, with the rest recorded around the same period. This time Djong Yun’s vocals are absent, leaving Fricke and Daniel Fichelscher, joined by guest sitar and flute, to carry the album on instrumental colour alone.

The sound

Shimmering, flowing, meditative instrumental music, spacey and reflective. The heart of the album is Daniel Fichelscher’s guitar, layered and chiming, building gorgeous, cascading walls of sound that a listener can drift and lose themselves in, set against Florian Fricke’s delicate, unhurried piano and keyboards. Guest sitar and flute add an exotic, faintly Eastern glow, and a gentle folk feeling runs beneath the surface, but the mood is above all ambient and contemplative, closer to a slow, radiant reverie than to conventional songs. Without Djong Yun’s voice the music is more purely instrumental than on some of their records, and a little more even in texture, yet at its best it has the delicate, otherworldly beauty that is Popol Vuh’s signature, music that seems to hang and glow in the air.

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The songs

The album opens with its longest and finest piece, the eight-minute Engel der Gegenwart, one of the two tracks actually heard in the film, a slow, radiant build of chiming guitar and piano. The other film piece, Hüter der Schwelle, is shorter and more hushed. Around them sit gentle, flowing companions: Blätter aus dem Buch der Kühnheit and Das Lied von den hohen Bergen drift and shimmer, Der Ruf and Gemeinschaft deepen the reflective mood, and the title piece, Singet, denn der Gesang vertreibt die Wölfe, gives the album its haunting subtitle. Best heard whole, the record flows as one long, luminous, meditative sequence.

Reception and legacy

Herz aus Glas is regarded as another fine entry in Popol Vuh’s series of Werner Herzog soundtracks, cherished for Daniel Fichelscher’s ethereal guitar and Florian Fricke’s delicate, spacey compositions. Admirers lose themselves in its glowing, hypnotic textures, and Herzog himself championed Fricke’s film music, a partnership he valued for decades. Some listeners feel the album is a touch less cohesive than the band’s best, a little repetitive in places, and miss the presence of Djong Yun’s vocals, heard on so many of their finest records. Even so, it remains a singular, atmospheric work with few real points of comparison, and a rewarding one for anyone drawn to Popol Vuh’s serene, cinematic side. It is a lovely chapter in one of music and cinema’s great collaborations.

The verdict

A shimmering, meditative, largely instrumental soundtrack, and a fine chapter in the Popol Vuh and Werner Herzog partnership — radiant guitar and piano music of quiet, otherworldly beauty. Come to it for Daniel Fichelscher’s cascading guitar and the glowing opener Engel der Gegenwart, rather than for songs or vocals, which are absent this time. Play it whole and quietly, and let it drift. From here, Aguirre for the first and most famous of their Herzog scores, Das Hohelied Salomos for the acoustic beauty of the same era, and Affenstunde for the Moog debut where it all began. A luminous, atmospheric gem.

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