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Gila — Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
(Garden of Delights CD 046, 1973/2000, CD)

by Mac Beaulieu, Published 2001-12-01

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Cover art

This era of Gila is a far cry from the first, improv-based, psychedelic electric version. In fact, this band is essentially the same band as Popul Vuh of the same period (guitars, grand piano / Mellotron, drums / bass / perc), but here they concentrate on the compositions of original Gila member Conny Veit instead of Popul Vuh's Florian Fricke. This Gila displays strong folkish roots due to the dominance of 12-string acoustic guitar and the vocal arrangements (male and female), but this is far more than that, much in the same way that Popul Vuh was: it's tremendously inspired and often moving in a very spiritual way. Veit's multi-dubbed guitars are stunning, whether it's the shimmering 12-string strums, arpeggios, leads, or his unique electric work, which sometimes sounds remarkably like a violin. Some of the instrumental sections make this a godsend for peak-period Popul Vuh fanatics such as myself. Garden of Delights has produced a great-sounding copy (from LP), rendering the poor bootleg copies obsolete. Add to that the typically informative booklet we get from GoD discs and this is an easily recommendable purchase. An album like this just couldn't have been made without Veit, Fricke, Fichelscher, and those psychedelic heydays of the 70s.

Filed under: Reissues, Issue 23, 2000 releases, 1973 recordings

Related artist(s): Gila

 

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