Popol Vuh, james K, ML Buch, Lorenzo Senni - The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (Original Score & Variations) (LP)

Composed for Werner Herzog's documentary The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (Die große Ekstase des Bildschnitzers Steiner, 1974), this previously unreleased score by the German musical collective Popol Vuh accompanies the extraordinary flights of Swiss ski flyer and woodcarver Walter Steiner. Internationally celebrated for his record-breaking ski flying in the 1970s, Steiner (born 1951) became a two-time world champion and earned the nickname "the bird man." Popol Vuh's ethereal score elevates Steiner's flights beyond the realm of sporting achievement, giving musical form to what Herzog would later call "ecstatic truth": a poetic reality that reaches beyond objective fact toward a deeper emotional and spiritual experience. Herzog saw Steiner not simply as a medal-winning athlete, but as someone pursuing "dreams of flight," whose ski flying and work as a woodcarver were driven by the same desire to escape gravity. Together, Popol Vuh's transcendent score and Herzog's use of slow motion stretch each flight beyond its physical limits until it becomes almost sculptural - a suspended moment where human aspiration meets physical vulnerability and the fear of death. Rather than following the trajectory of the jump itself, Popol Vuh's music reaches its crescendo only after the decisive moment has passed. It is a crescendo not of triumph, but of suspension and profound solitude. Founded by Florian Fricke in Munich in 1969, Popol Vuh are considered one of the most influential German avant-garde groups to emerge from the progressive rock movement of the 1970s. After pioneering the use of the Moog synthesizer on their earliest recordings, the group gradually moved towards a more acoustic and spiritual sound, drawing on piano, guitars, percussion, and musical traditions from India, Africa, and South America. Fricke resisted labels such as "krautrock" and "new age," preferring terms like "magic music" or "cosmic space rock" when a description was needed. Beginning with Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Werner Herzog and Florian Fricke developed one of cinema's most distinctive artistic collaborations. Across more than a decade of films - including Heart of Glass, Nosferatu, Fitzcarraldo, and Cobra Verde - Popol Vuh's scores became an essential part of Herzog's cinematic language, shaping the immersive atmosphere and emotional intensity that define his films. The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner is one of Werner Herzog's most important films and marks an early expression of the themes that would come to define his cinema. Time and again, Herzog is drawn to individuals who push beyond fear and the physical limits of the body, pursuing visions and ambitions that exist at the very edge of possibility. To accompany this release, three contemporary artists - james K, ML Buch, and Lorenzo Senni - revisit Popol Vuh's original soundtrack. Their reinterpretations create a dialogue across five decades, revealing the enduring resonance of Popol Vuh's music and its remarkable capacity to continue evoking wonder, contemplation, and transcendence.