THE LINDAU PROJECT
Photo by Karin Berneburg
Popul Vuh lives, with ex-members
Interview by Chris Wheatley
(December 2025)
Of all the wonderfully inventive bands to emerge from Germany during the 1960s and '70s, arguably the most distinctive was Popol Vuh. Led by the mercurial and enigmatic Florian Fricke, the group occupied previously uncharted ground, mixing classical structures with free-flowing, hypnotic melodies and elements of traditional rock. The otherworldly and absorbing textures which the band created proved the perfect soundtrack to multiple films by another idiosyncratic artist with a singular vision - director Werner Herzog.
Now, a young international group of modern-day musicians are celebrating the unique music of Popol Vuh in their own fashion, with support from original Popol Vuh band members. The Lindau Project, as they are known, comprises Marco Grötsch (electric 12-string guitar), Amelie Klug (vocals, electric guitar, percussion), Fabian Broicher (drums), Max Bolch (electric guitar, film), Jan Fischer (tech), Bastian Blaimer (electric baritone guitar) and Bruno Olsson (piano).
Fabian Broicher and Max Bolch were more than happy to sit down and talk about the ineffable magic of the pioneering German band and their personal journeys into sound.
PSF: How did each of you become involved with music?
MB: When I was seven years old, I got a keyboard, and that was my entry into the music world. It had all sorts of strange sounds, and I think it taught me how to use the different colours of sound. From there, I went to the guitar and to all sorts of strange string instruments, such as the dulcimer.
FB: I think I got on my parents' nerves a lot as a kid, because I was drumming on everything. When they took me to shopping malls, also just to the supermarket, I was just hammering about on everything that was in the store. I was fascinated by these boxes making different sounds. When I was three or four, my parents bought me this really shitty drum kit. I started taking lessons when I was six.
PSF: What sort of music were you exposed to growing up?
MB: In my case, it was mainly progressive rock, more of the jazzy kind, like King Crimson, maybe, but also Genesis, and a lot of British folk rock. This has been my main part of interest over many years, like Fairport Convention, etc. And I think the jazz slowly faded out and classical music slowly faded in. But it's always been the underground type electric music that has tickled my fancy.
FB: My dad was a huge King Crimson fan and stuff like that, lots of Pink Floyd. When I was about eight or nine, I heard Wish You Were Here for the first time. I was just fascinated by how great this music could be, when nothing would happen for ages.
PSF: When did you first encounter the music of Popol Vuh?
FB: For me it was, it was the Werner Herzog movies, I think Nosferatu or Aguirre probably. I was around 17 or 18 at the time. I'm a huge cinema lover and I slowly discovered the more artsy films. There was a box set of five or six CDs with the Werner Herzog soundtracks of Popol Vuh. I was hooked ever since. So that was that was my gateway into discovering the regular albums.
MB: It was a coincidence of two situations in life. On the one hand, I was a little bit bored by genuine rock music, and I was looking for music which also uses electric instrumentation, but in a more subtle way. I was listening to a lot of Brian Eno, a lot of Cluster, a lot of Royston Wood - a forgotten English folk musician who also experimented with classical music with electric instruments. Then came I moved close to the Alpine mountains, and the combination of Popol Vuh music with these massive mountains made me realize that, yeah, a lot of it is mountain music. And I think Florian Fricke often talked about the specific qualities of mountain music. He, as you know, spent a lot of time in the Himalayan Mountains, and it was like, boom. It was a very synesthetic experience of those great stone giants and these monolithic compositions.
Photo by Karin Berneburg
PSF: How did The Lindau Project come about?
MB: On hikes, I often have strange ideas. And I thought, "well, isn't it strange that this beautiful Popol Vuh music has so rarely been performed on stage." As I was listening to it via earphones, I was thinking, "how many guitars would we need to play this?" I always had a little bit of a list in my head of people in the local scene who listen to related music, and when I found out that Fabian - who I have known for 10 years, but we lost track for some time - was living close by, I thought," wow, actually, there are enough musicians in the surrounding area who might be interested in going for it."
The name, The Lindau Project reflects that we wanted to play at an anniversary concert in Florian Fricke's, hometown, Lindau, because he would have been 80 last year. It turned out that Lindau does not really have the kind of venues where this music fits. So we're still negotiating, but this was the principal aim in the in the beginning, to play at the shore of the Bodensee [Lake Constance] - this huge lake where Florian Fricke was born. And we hope that maybe next year, it will turn out alright,
FB: Like Max said, it's such a shame that Popol Vuh only did a handful of shows, because I think we found out very quickly that this music has this sort of energy to it, which is very strange. When you listen to it, you think it's a very ethereal background, almost like ambient music. But when you actually get into it and play it, you find out that it's actually quite energetic. It's a weird combination of these two things. When we performed our first gigs and did our first uploads onto YouTube, we were kind of shocked how many people latched onto it so quickly.
We wanted to also get the music back into where it came from, the Bavarian landscape first and foremost, but also we're trying to play in churches, because it's a very, not holy music, but Florian Fricke always used texts from the Bible, from the Old Testament and stuff. Our dream is just to continue to play, because I feel that the Popol Vuh catalogue is like an endless well where you can just pull out stuff and then then arrange it.
MB: One beautiful thing is, I think that all the Popol Vuh compositions, they have classical music as their core substance, because Florian Fricke composed many of those on the piano. There are these beautiful demo recordings that he did and the cool thing is that he put them into the hands of [Popol Vuh bandmate] Danny Fichelscher and said: "do something with it," and he did. Danny has this wonderful energy. He has this sense of primal rhythm, but it is still classical music in its core, and this is such a wonderful combination of the mind and the body. I'll tend to argue that it is possibly a very unique branch of new music. And there are not too many people who have done this.
PSF: How did the connection with original members of Popol Vuh, singer Renate Knaup and drummer/guitarist Danny Fichelscher come about?
FB: So this is a weird story. I'm originally from, from Cologne, and I went to school with the nephew of Renate Knaup. I never really figured that out until I started this Popol Vuh project. Out of the blue, I contacted Renate on Facebook, and she was very nice. She gave me her phone number, and she came by to one of our gigs at the beginning of this year, and she was incredibly nice. She was just sitting in the in the front row and singing along. She connected us with with Danny.
PSF: When you started playing this music, how difficult did you find it to master?
FB: My job is very easy because I'm just there in the back, just playing the drums, and thinking, "oh, my God, what have I done to deserve playing with four guitarists?!" But yeah, I think that there is some difficulty in arranging the music and just figuring out what the hell is going on.
MB: Fabian is severely understating his role, because I think he's a brilliant musical director with a brilliant ear for which combinations of sound fit and which don't. It is at the same time easy and difficult. It is easy because I think the music of Popol Vuh is very much detached from the people who composed it. For instance, Fabian and I went to a concert of a Genesis cover band, and I thought, "wow, it is so difficult to copy Genesis and to copy the mannerisms of the of the musicians, because they are important."
In Popol Vuh's case, I think the music is very absolute. You can analyse the melodic lines. You have to find a way to phrase them, but you don't have to copy the phrasing note for note. And this leads us to the difficult part. It's always difficult to find out what is the core substance of the composition, which melodies that Danny plays are essential, and sometimes we play a composition, and we feel something was missing. On the other hand, there are many improvisational parts where it is absolutely okay, in my opinion, to divert from the original composition. But nobody can tell us which is which, apart from Danny himself. And it's been a great pleasure that Danny took the time to sit down with us and guide us through the recordings and show us all of the parts. I think this was one of the best music lessons I ever had.
PSF: Has playing the music of Popol Vuh given you a new appreciation for their art?
MB: Yes, definitely, especially with regards to rhythm. When I first listened to the music, I was thinking especially of melodies and of harmonies, and it was only when I played the compositions that I realised that the rhythmic phrasing of the guitar parts is also reflective of percussion. It's like the basic rhythms are in the guitar parts as well. And so actually, Popol Vuh taught me a lot about rhythm, which might, as Fabian said, appear strange, because it sounds so ambient.
When we started playing, we tended to play aggressively, because the music is so energetic, and I think to me, energetic meant to play aggressively, but over time, and also under the guidance of Danny, we found out that there is an ecstatic energy that is strictly not aggressive but joyful. The process of adapting your playing style from the rock and roll kind of aggression to this ecstatic energy is maybe one of the most significant experiences in music making that I have made ever.
FB: It's the same for me. It's very easy for a drummer play straight up rock and roll. And there is that element to Popol Vuh, certainly, in some in some respect, but to learn to play heavy, but light in a way, even though that sounds self-contradictory, that's something that's really elevated my playing. When we're playing together, I'm listening to the melodic side of things - all these interweaving guitar melodies that are going on around me. I feel like that's something I can appreciate more now. It's really lifted my appreciation for the music of Popol Vuh, especially the way it's arranged,
PSF: What does the immediate future hold for The Lindau Project?
FB: We're mixing a single currently. We have a few of our own songs, and we're arranging them in the spirit of Popol Vuh. We've also talked re-recording some of the Popol Vuh stuff. I would love to do as much live as we can, I feel like playing live is like the ultimate, goal. Since we saw how big the feedback was, and is, from the UK, I would love to come over for a UK tour at some point.
