DAS HOHELIED SALOMOS

Popol Vuh's Das Hohelied Salomos, based on the Song of Solomon from the Old Testament, has the usual spiritual/mystical feel of other Popol Vuh work, with it's shimmering guitars and cymbals, and the pretty vocals from Djong Yun. There's a bit of sitar as well. Florian Fricke's piano isn't always prominant but most of the pieces feel like they're built around it.

Things get off to a pretty powerful start with Steh auf, zieh mich dir nach booming through the speakers, and eventually there's some bluesy lead guitar work toward the end of the track. As the album continues it varies from slow meditative bits to brightly layered guitar work and a lot of energy, and is often pleasant sounding. I've used the word shimmering already, but a lot of the album has a shimmering quality, although it lacks some of the hypnotic effect of other Popol Vuh music.

I must mention the bonus tracks on the SPV CD. They're really quite good. In den Nächten auf den Gassen III is your basic and energetic Popol Vuh song, but I like it a lot. It's followed by a neat little jam that's just piano and drums called Schön bist Du vor Menschensöhnen (alternative Session) . Mitten im Garten almost sounds like a demo and it's just Fricke on piano with occasional metallic strumming (sounds like it's the strings above the fretboard) from Ficheslcher. It's very peaceful.

There seems to be a varying quality of the SPV recording, which seems to be the case with many of their Popol Vuh releases. They sometimes sound like they aren't really remastered (although to tell the truth I don't have any other recordings to make a real comparison, but reviews of other albums have mentioned this). There are a couple of songs that suddenly cut off when they're fading out (probably not noticeable at a moderate volume). The liner notes have nice tributes to the late Florian Fricke, but it would've been nice to have some album specific notes (there seem to be two types of booklets: one for the Werner Herzog soundtracks and one for the rest of the albums), and perhaps artwork reproductions besides the front of the cover. Gripes aside, I'm glad I have this CD.