Pitchfork

I wasn't sure how this would play out: a remix of Popol Vuh's brilliant theme for Werner Herzog's Aguirre by Haswell & Hecker. The original is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I know, and once you've seen the film, the opening images it accompanies will stay with you forever (thank you, YouTube). Haswell & Hecker, on the other hand, are in part about ugliness. An artful ugliness, to be sure; their work deals in extreme sonics even if it's not exactly noise. To me, it seems like electronic music about electricity itself, amplifying hums and feedback and leakage and assorted grating tones to a volume that could shake a room. But they do right by Florian Fricke's original here, extending the ghostly chords of the Mellotron-like "choir organ" and having them hover in place, lying in wait for the videogame-like blasters that intrude about halfway through. The blips gradually leading back to more placid waters before erupting again in a final section that's all about disorienting contrast, making for a satisfying eight-minute journey into a very peculiar valley. The flipside of the red vinyl contains an equally good remix of the Popol Vuh's Cobra Verde theme by Pan Sonic's Mika Vainio.

 

 

[from the "Popol Vuh: Mika Vainio / Haswell & Hecker Remixes" 12"; out now on Editions Mego]