1972:
Holger leest op het ogenblik voornamelijk Nietzsche en zo nu en dan komt hij samen met Florian om samen met hem muziek te maken. Florian speelt dan op de Moog en Holger speelt op tabla. Uren kunnen ze samen spelen. Hemelse geluiden, romantiese onderwater muziek. Ze hebben samen ongeveer dezelfde ervaringen gehad. Allebei zijn ze eens in het water gevallen en bijna verdronken. Dat gevoel van het onder water zinken, dat uiten ze in hun eindeloze sessies. Ze treden niet op maar ze hebben wel een elpee gemaakt die Affenstunde heet. Als je de hoes open slaat dan zie je een foto van zo’n doodstil bergmeer. De muziek begint met een plons alsof je in het water springt. Ik heb al eens in deze krant geschreven over de plaat die ik voortdurend op de achtergrond hoorde spelen toen ik in München was. Ze hebben de naam Popol Vuuh. Hun eerste plaat kwam uit bij Liberty en hun tweede plaat komt uit bij BASF op een nieuw label. Hun tweede plaat begint ook weer met water, maar op kant twee gaan ze te keer op een giganties kerkorgel.
Holger Trülzsch: “Als we ons goed voelen maken we een tape van wat we doen. Maar ik speel niet zo veel, soms maar een keer per jaar. Florian is meer in mystiek geïnteresseerd en in Boeda. Ik ben daar niet zo voor. Ik houd niet van theologie, leven na de dood. Het doodt de fantasie en de geest. Ik leef meer in het nu.” (Aloha)
1981:
Fricke: “I found a certain womanvoice on the synthesizer on the second LP and after that I was no longer interested. I’m a conservative artist, not interested in just pressing buttons, so I went back to the piano. Sometimes the power would vary so you couldn’t always get the same sound on the synthesizer. It’s too dependent on the machinery. It’s nothing human. The piano is more direct. People said I should continue because I could make money, but for me at that time electronics were over.”(Sounds)
1993:
Keyboards: ein Jahr später kam dann die nächste LP ‘In den Gärten des Pharao’. Gab es da schon Unterschiede in der Arbeitsweise im Vergleich zur ersten?
Florian Fricke: Die Beschäftigung mit der ‘Affenstunde’ hat einen bestimmten Teil der Möglichkeiten des Moog hervorgebracht. Aber da gab es noch einen anderen Teil, der noch nicht getan war. Ich kannte gewisse Klänge, die ich in meiner Vorstellung schon hattte, noch nicht. Beim ‘Pharao’ habe ich die menschliche Stimme gesucht und ausgelotet. So ist der ‘Pharao’ anders als ‘Affenstunde’ ein sehr lyrisches, gesanglich-elektronisches Stück geworden, mit modernen Chorälen und der imitation einer Sopranstimme.
Danach war dann allerdings das, was ich nur von diesem instrument ersehnt hatte, in mir befriedigt und auch erschöpft, und ich habe aufgehört, auf dem Moog zu spielen. Klaus Schulze hat ihn dann von mir übernommen.(Keyboards)
1995:
Edwin Pouncey: That first record you made, you used a huge Moog synthesizer. Was that record designed for that instrument? Was the Moog bought first, then you thought - make a Moog Sound record?
Gerhard Augustin: I should tell you the story. Before I came to United Artists in Germany I was working with UA in America and live in San Francisco, and I had worked with David Brown from Santana, on a Moog Synthesizer. So I came to Germany and I was specifically looking for someone in Germany that would have that kind of instrument. There were two people: Eberhard Schoener and Florian Fricke, who also happened to be direct neighbours out in the country. House to house! The only two people in Germany who had this very expensive instrument! A Moog Synthesizer was 65,000 Marks at the time. So I had this idea of doing an album. There was another guy - Walter Carlos...
Florian Fricke: [He did it] just before. This was a record of Bach [for the synthesizer]...
Gerhard Augustin: We wanted to make an album, to create new sounds. Because I envisioned the possibilities of that instrument on a long run. I knew that it would eventually take its place alongside other instruments, by the ability to create certain technical sounds, which until that time were not possible. That's where he (Florian) came in. We were introduced by another filmmaker who brought us together. Florian was in the process of doing this album, and it was extremely hard to find a company [to release it]. Not even my own company, when it was finished, wanted to go for it. We had to go through some strange changes! We took it to EMI in Cologne...we went to another company in Hamburg, where the artists weren't allowed to come in the office! 'You guys have to stay outside, I just want to talk to your manager'. Until today this is his most legendary album, of all the albums he did, just because it was so new, so different. It was done for the purpose of making a Moog Synthesizer [record]. At the beginning people did not accept it. Today we have had at least 55 different releases, in different countries and different labels. And other people have sampled this!
Florian Fricke: It was a fantastic journey to learn this Moog synthesizer. I didn't have any papers - there was no manual for how to run that machine! He was angry [?]...Robert Moog who invented the Moog. It was a strange beautiful journey.
Edwin Pouncey: So you were improvising on this mysterious instrument, for which you had no manual to operate...you were discovering sounds for yourself on that machine.
Florian Fricke: We have made, day and night, music! I was always playing. I was working almost around the clock. Whenever I didn't sleep, I was just experimenting, trying to find...Frank Fiedler was a very important man, especially at this time, he was there from the beginning. Later I come back to my old roots, back to the piano. I was learning piano music at high school. I was a good Mozart player. (The Sound Projector )
1996:
Gerhard Augustin: There are two songs in IN DEN GARTEN PHAROAS. Please tell me what idea did you have before making these tunes, and were these tunes improvised in the studio?
Florian Fricke: One is a song that was recorded live in a church, "Vuh." And the A-side, "In Den Garten Pharaos," Frank Fiedler and I, who had already worked on the AFFENSTUNDE album, created this song actually in our home studio and later went into another studio to do the mastering for it. The last part of the song was recorded in the studio actually, like most of our music has been recorded in studios, this was the Fender piano in the end. (Eurock)
