Lala Harrison Ryan playing piano music of Florian Fricke

September 6th, 2023 American pianist Lala Harrison Ryan performed a program of piano compositions of Florian Fricke at the Roulette, Brooklyn. The performance was part of a series of concerts celebrating the 20th birthday of Skinkoyo, a Brooklyn-based collective of musicians and artists.

The performance is archived for viewing in the archive section of the Roulette-website. An impressive archive by the way that is worth digging!

Lala has played piano since she was 13 and she holds a Master of Music from Boston University. “Florian Fricke and Popol Vuh mean a great deal to me as a musician, and have for years.  I love every Popol Vuh record, and of course am in awe of Florian's collaborative work with Werner Herzog in his films. His solo piano work in Kailash is particularly important to me. Around the same time that I transcribed (with a transcription software) Florian's collection of solo piano music, Kailash, and started to play it, Matt Mehlan was curating his 20 years of Shinkoyo event. I was so happy that Matt asked me to present a select few pieces from Kailash, as part of this event at Roulette. My husband, musician and writer John Fell Ryan projected a video of a road trip on the projection screen, and also affected the piano sound a bit with echo and reverb effects pedals, with the help of another musician, Keith Connelly.  It is a dream of mine to present all of the pieces one day in America and Europe.”

She is one of very few musicians I know of that seriously engages in performing Fricke’s music. So I recently (march 2025) contacted her for a short interview by mail:

Was this the only occasion you played this program so far..? Any concrete plans for the future?

This performance at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn was the first time I performed Kailash. Matt Mehlan was curating his 20 Years of Shinkoyo series at Roulette and asked me to present something. Places like Roulette are so important, as they give performances like mine of Kailash, a place to belong. I am so grateful for Roulette and my friend Matt's curation there.

I am also a member of the band Excepter, and we have an album that is almost complete. When we are able to promote the album with a European/US tour (hopefully fall 2025/ or winter/spring 2026) I look forward to presenting Kailash live, wherever we can find a promoter/venue who is interested in presenting Kailash.  Ultimately, I would really, really love to perform these pieces in Tibet!

In what way are the piano works on Kailash important for you me? Can you be more specific on this?  What is their relevance? What makes them attractive?

Fricke's piano pieces on Kailash (Spirit of Peace 1, Spirit of Peace 2, Spirit of Peace 3, Mahayana Karuna, The Heart, Earth View, Moses, Garden of Pythagoras) have meant so much to me since I first discovered them. As Fricke was a brilliant pianist who studied classically, he could play however or whatever he chose. It's significant to me that these pieces seem to emanate from an introspective place. They sound almost improvisational, sometimes still and sometimes emphatic. Fricke chose to approach his instrument in a meditative way for these songs. There are some melodic elements in these pieces that appear in other Popol Vuh songs, and these connections make Kailash feel like part of a landscape in Florian Fricke's and Popol Vuh's universe.

The relevance and attraction of these pieces, to me, is that they give the listener permission to breathe more slowly. The space that Fricke allows his melodies is very rare and special. This space becomes an atmosphere of possibility. This atmosphere is a gift to his listeners. It's a rare gift in our modern age to experience stillness and space. 

Is it a meaningful question for you, if I ask you what is this music about? If so, what would be your answer?

 Spirit of Peace 1, to me, sounds like a space of drama and grandeur. Spirit of Peace 2 is ancient monastic music. Music that tells of questions and prayers answered. Spirit of Peace 3 takes that further, into a dream zone of moving foundation in the left hand, which allows the right hand to float into melodies that are simply allowed to exist.

The Heart finds release in repetition, some of the most stunning music I have ever heard happens during slight variations in the melody in this movement. Every time I play these moments in The Heart I get chills.  Earth View is transcendent.  For me, Earth View releases one from gravity and exists beyond time.  Moses is still a mystery to me and I love that I have that discovery ahead of me still. Garden of Pythagoras starts with questions and ends with absolute perfect love, arrival, open arms, finally belonging after searching, eternity. 

Mahayana Karuna is a title I didn't research until I had played the whole movement, and I had no idea what those words meant. Before I looked up the definition, I could tell you that this movement, as well as the last part of Garden of Pythagoras, are full of forgiveness, love, compassion, and most importantly, mercy.

When I discovered the definition of Mahayana Karuna, it made sense, as Fricke turned this quality into a sound. Mahayana Karuna: Mahayana is a form of Buddhism, while Karuna is compassion, one of the two qualities (the other is enlightened wisdom) to be cultivated on the bodhisattva path. I hear compassion in Mahayana Karuna. 

What did it bring you – personally -  to play these pieces?

To play these pieces, after being a mega Popol Vuh fan for years, was thrilling. After the thought occurred to me to transcribe them, I was so excited to re-trace Fricke's compositional footsteps. Playing them really brings you, as a player, into Fricke's mindspace.  Also, these pieces deserve to be played live, and to give them life was very meaningful for me, a dream come true.

If you had to describe or categorize their music – Popol Vuh in general, Fricke’s piano music in particular - what other bands, composers, genres pop up in your mind?

I know that Popol Vuh is compared to Neu in reviews, but I disagree with this comparison. Neu seems to be referencing American rock and roll rhythms, in the psychedelic rock tradition of the Beatles, while Popol Vuh seems to follow through on their long lines of phrasing, without trying to be pop music. Popol Vuh's music works well in Werner Herzog's motion pictures because it's moving towards orchestral classical music.

Fricke's piano music reminds me a tiny bit of Satie but mostly because Satie's compositional style employs stillness. 

 I hear more Debussy in Kailash, especially Earth View, which is reminiscent of La Cathedral Engloutie (DM: composition for solo piano by Debussy) with the gorgeous chords rising up from low to high. 

I adore the French composers, I play Satie, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc every day!

How did you proceed after you transcribed the works? What were your points of reference, by which you could judge being on the / your right track?

After I transcribed Kailash piano pieces, I did use the recording of Kailash as a guide. However, at a certain point, I was forced to take on an elevated improvisatorial head space and really interpret these on my own. I do not mean to present these as a cover band per se, so I am not mimicking Fricke's performance style. As a performer interpreting them live, as they deserve to be heard, I have to take some ownership and give them my own performance and interpretation. I played through these for both my husband, John Fell Ryan (who is also a musician) and Matt Mehlan. They both really helped me find confidence in myself as an interpreter of Fricke's music.

What freedom did you yourself permit to bring the pieces alive? I mean, to do justice to the composition on the hand, and to give your interpretation on the other. And in the end, there is no other way of course.

Well, to be specific, I gave Spirit of Peace 2 some very dramatic dynamics. I gave Spirit of Peace 3 some leeway in terms of the repetitive left hand part which is very punishing after five to seven minutes, I played more slowly and softly than the recording. Florian Fricke's technique is incredible and I don't have the stamina he did for Spirit of Peace 3! In The Heart, I took it a little slower as I didn't want the beauty to end. For Earth View, I paused, sometimes quite a bit, in between phrases, giving them time to resonate.  I did not perform Mahayana Karuna, Moses or Garden of Pythagoras, as the program had other performers and I needed to end after about 30 minutes. I will perform them all together one day!

What role did the Kailash-album play, while studying?

I did use the recordings as my guide, and I love how Fricke performs these. As the composer and performer, his freedom is inspiring. His playing is quite freeing. 

How, when did you discover Popol Vuh/Fricke?

My husband introduced me to them, as well as to the films of Werner Herzog. What a gift! He also gave me the CD Kailash when it was released. I have learned a lot from my husband, as before I met him and joined his band Excepter, I was training classically. I practiced for several hours a day and didn't have time to explore film or 70s German bands!

By the way, No Necks Blues Band, does ring a bell. Excepter is new for me. Any continuity with your piano-project?

My husband John Fell Ryan is a member of No Neck Blues Band, in the words of my husband, a young person's New York City free improvisation avant-garde band. My husband formed Excepter to take more of an experimental pop approach to New York City avant-garde music. I play keyboard and sing in Excepter, but my Florian Fricke piano project is separate. Excepter is all electronic, with a few woodwinds and acoustic percussion thrown in here and there.

Krissi Kathrin?

Dolf, I love that you discovered my Krissi Kathrin band. It's basically me plus whoever I can convince to perform with me!  I tried to cover Vuh from In Den Garten Pharaos. We performed it at Silent Barn 2.0 in Bushwick around 2015, I played organ and I had two of my gorgeous friends stand on stage silently looking at the audience. It was really really challenging to get that specific beautiful organ sound/line to emerge from the sound system and I'm not quite sure how it all appeared/sounded. But experiments are important, and to fail at something new is an accomplishment! Musicians need venues and audiences. Venue survival in a place like New York City, or San Francisco or LA or London or Berlin or Copenhagen is so precious and precarious. I can't take them for granted the way I used to. Krissi Kathrin is always there, waiting for me to extract myself from all our other projects! We scored a 2024 film called Dream Team, by directors Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn, distributed by Yellow Veil Pictures. Between being a mother, our new Excepter album, playing Excepter shows and my piano practice, Krissi Kathrin will have to wait a bit longer.