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My feet walked lazily somewhere, wrapped in the light warmth of the early afternoon sun. Munich was strange, with no one around, decidedly surreal. My feet stopped in front of a tall portal. They opened it and entered. The smell of incense immediately reached my nose as my head lifted to see where the walls of this tall and anonymous Gothic church ended... partly gray... bursts of light... stained glass windows... I sat down to observe, and gradually noticed music beginning to be heard all around, but it wasn't an organ. It was a piano. The music rose and fell, rose and fell, flew all over the church... I glimpsed the piano and a figure from the back. I stood up and approached. The music was counting out notes, small sudden bursts of light... few notes and then a cascade of notes... and then again few notes... and a cascade... and then the hands lifted from the keys. I was a few meters from that strange figure with long hair. He turned towards me. A small barely perceptible smile, relaxed eyes. He turned away...
"You play beautiful music!"
"Mmmhhh."
"Why the piano?"
"Because it can create the same atmospheres as the organ, but more pleasant to the ear, and more relaxing."
"Church atmospheres?"
"Not exactly. No. Atmospheres that describe what's inside you and that you need to learn to know. Your spirituality. Yes."
"Do they not say anything to you about playing here?"
"Apparently not."
"Well, it was nice... um..."
"Florian."
"Yes, so goodbye."
He gave me a nod. I left the church, feeling a trail of notes behind me. People outside were out and about again.
Sometime later, I came across "Hosianna Mantra" by Popol Vuh. As the stereo started playing it, I shivered. I had something very important artistically in my hands: the intentions are to create a sort of liturgical music work, but in a merry-go-round of piano and guitar notes (Florian Fricke and Conny Veit). All of it forming mystical whirlwinds that take you somewhere else, in a state of levitation, of bliss... More than the individual songs, the entire work should be considered: a celebration of the soul, of joy, and of light that makes the mind vibrate, floating in the most absolute stasis and calm...
It is not an "easy" album, but trying it wouldn't be bad. Only in this way can one understand the ambition of this project, and the greatness of Popol Vuh and of Kraut Rock as a whole, which with its imagination and innovation has enriched music in an incredible way.
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Other reviews
By insolito
Hosianna enchants you, devours you inside, like a thousand arches of fire.
It’s our fear of living. It’s the fear of masturbating while listening to the sweet notes produced by drugged and cultured musicians like no one before.
By Neu!_Cannas
I just have to hit play and hope to find once again those angels whispering Hosianna Mantra in my ear.
A Sunday in the spirit of relaxation... you find yourself before a celestial vision. A pure waterfall, tall, paradisiacal.
By Rocky Marciano
Florian Fricke raises a sound wave that nullifies the distance between earth and sky, his celestial sound hovers among the runes, a magniloquent and glorious song of Hecate...
Ecstasy and wonder, suggestion and solemnity, a cascade of pure light like spring water, crystalline and dazzling.
By Ocean
Electronic music could not have expressed the spiritual potential and purity contained in this work.
After forty minutes the effect is that of a prayer: peace in the spirit.
By caesar666
"Hosianna Mantra was a mystical hymn imbued with cosmic purity that marvelously united Christian and Eastern religiosity."
"It is impossible to remain indifferent if you manage to enter into the pan-cultural mysticism of this record."
