The film found the renowned German art house director making his version of F.W. Murnau's"Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie der Grauens"- the striking silent & eerier German  vampire film from 1922.  For his version Herzog cast unbalanced yet brilliant German actor Klaus Kinski as Count Dracula, Kinski portrayed the character as a both deadly yet aching lonely too.  Add to this Herzog flair for capturing beautiful & ominous shots of landscape, and Popol Vuh's soundtrack that mixed together moody sitar & tabla laden mellow psychedelic rock jams & folky acostic gitar strums, monful yet harmonic piano drifts, & doomy synth scaping- and you had a masterpiece.

For his reinterpretation Strand, has pulled, stretched & droned out Popol Vuh's original soundtrack to a truly chilling & doomed apex.  Stand utilizes the original lay out of the soundtrack, but stretchers Popol Vuh's original two to six minute tracks out into twelve to near on forty minute  droned-out & doomed epics.

Most of the fourteen tracks here are effective & well convinced  reinterpretation’s of the original soundtrack tracks, but a few of particular high points come in the form of: Disc ones “Die Umkehr” that finds Stand taking the original strummed guitar & sitar lined folk moodiness of the original track, and morphing it into a huge wall of ringing & sweepingly oppressive drone work which rather brought to mind the kind of thing The Swans did on the denser/ ambient tracks from thier Soundtracks for the Blind album.  Disc twos “Mourning Sun” which sees Stand totally converting the bright/ golden yet moody layered folk guitar strum & simply percussion of the Popol Vuh's track, into a thirty four minute creepy drone fest that utilizes sustained churning church organ like dark-ness, slowly shifting/ morbid revbrations, and chilling sub-tone sweeps.
Disc threes “Die Natch De Himmel”  finds the original track’s simmering & hovering dark moog scapes reduced down to a truly chilling & creepy line of barely moving & suffocating drone drift ‘n’ night-time purring- this seems to throb & ebb with the pure essence of dread.
Disc threes “Der Ruf Der Rohrflote” converts the original  tracks wavering & ghostly organ/ synth drift,  into a mixture of nocturnal hissing & oppressive/crawling tone fog, that’s lined with deeply slowed textural judders ‘n’ crackles

As always with Altar of Wastes releases Strand has put a lot of thought/ effort into the house style see through DVD case packaging. The double sided front cover features a wonderfully moody & doomed shot of a beach side grave yard, and the inner picture is of Count Dracula’s & Jonathan Harker’s first meeting. With the four discs feature a selection of moody film stills too.

I’ll have to say over the last few weeks I’ve returned to this four disc set again & again, as all of the discs are equally captivating & rewarding in their doomed & creepy nocturnal lined vibe. Once again Stand has effectively capture the sprit of his chosen reinterpretation, yet he’s also managed to very much add his own take to it too. I must this is one of my favourite reinterpretation’s that strand has done thus far. It’s such a pity it’s now out of printing…he’s hoping it reappears again at some point, as this really is a truly bone chilling & creepily rewarding set.