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Concept
Florian Fricke
Summary
Florian Fricke (1944–2001) was a German musician who started his professional career with electronic music, using the Moog synthesizer, and was a founding member of the German rock group Popol Vuh.
Born on 23 February 1944, to an affluent Bavarian family, on the Lindau island of Lake Constance, Germany, situated where Germany, Switzerland, and Austria meet, Fricke started playing the piano as a child. He studied piano, composition, and conducting at Conservatories in Freiburg and Munich.
While in Munich, at 18, he began exploring avant-garde music such as free jazz. At around that age, he also shot a few short films.
In the early 1960s, Fricke befriended future film director Werner Herzog. In the 5th issue of David Elliott's fanzine Neumusik, in 1981, Garry Scott related that the two young men "shared similar ideas and beliefs" and "dreamed of changing the world."
Fricke appeared in the small part of an unnamed pianist in the 1968 movie Signs of Life, Herzog's first, which was shot in Greece. Fricke subsequently edited the soundtracks of several Herzog's movies, among which were Nosferatu: Phantom of the Night, starring Klaus Kinski and Bruno Ganz, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, and Heart of Glass. In Herzog's 1974 film The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Fricke made a cameo appearance as a blind pianist named "Florian."
Popol Vuh (German band)
One day, in the 1960s, while in the Munich University's library, Fricke and Herzog came across a religious book of the Maya, titled Popol Vuh. In 1969, Fricke co-founded the eponymous band along with sound designer Frank Fiedler and percussionist Holger Trülzsch. He was one of the first musicians to own and use a Moog III synthesizer, with which he recorded Popol Vuh's first two albums Affenstunde ("Hour of the Monkey") and In den Gärten Pharaos ("In Pharaohs' Gardens").
Fricke is considered a "pioneer of electronic music." Critic Mark Lager found the LP In den Gärten Pharaos "otherwordly" and "the most mind-blowing mystical experience.
Official source
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