2006/03/26

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Embryo Live at the Exzellenzhaus, Trier

Semi-controlled chaos

Trier: Guitar, drums, keyboard. Almost no modern band can manage without these instruments. The formation “Embryo”, founded in 1969, also uses these instruments. But what is a marimba? What does a darabuca actually sound like, and what do you do with a kanjira?

If you are interested in eccentric music and exotic instruments, Embryo is just the thing for you. And those who are not into that should perhaps stick to classic pop. In 2004, the Munich band “Embryo” celebrated its 35th anniversary. Embryo is not a classic band, but rather an association in which sometimes more and sometimes fewer musicians play. They don't think about it that strictly. Even outside the Exhaus, the white band van with the Munich license plate catches the eye and you wonder how it got through the TÜV. The musicians themselves - Germans, Austrians and a Spanish man - do not look particularly elegant. Christian Burchard has been with the band since the beginning in 1969, and wears jeans that are too big, a shirt that is too big and a sweater that is too big. His thick glasses and long hair support the cliché of the "68er". The stage looks no less adventurous: Large amplifiers rest on two Coca-Cola crates placed on top of each other. Woollen blankets and sheets cover parts of the instruments or are intended to have some kind of decorative effect. Admittedly, a piggy blanket is no longer all the rage and never has been. Today Embryo plays as a five-piece. “But yesterday we played with eight,” says Valentin Altenberger, an Austrian. He plays the ominous darabuca, an Egyptian drum, as well as the bass guitar. And he can also play a “duff”. It's not revealed what kind of instrument that is. Together with his colleague Lothar Stahl he forms the rhythm avant-garde, as Stahl plays the drums and the marimba, a kind of xylophone.

When the concert is actually due to start, the red and white lighting is still being meticulously worked on. Microphones also have to be plugged in and instruments mixed. After all, a perfect and voluminous sound should come out of the unstable amplifiers. And when you've been making music for 37 years, a 45-minute delay is no longer an issue. Then all five musicians stroll onto the stage and Burchard greets the applauding audience: “We're the oldest band in Germany and we're playing in the oldest city in Germany. And that's why we start with the oldest song.” His colleague Christian Schmidhofer, in his mid-thirties and with a paunch, takes off his shoes. Why he does this remains his secret. Burchard also takes off his shoes. Schmidhofer then takes a “Jew's harp”, a small musical instrument that he holds to his mouth to produce mewling noises. The 70 or so middle-aged spectators listen eagerly. Almost everyone has a beard or long hair. Or both. Slowly, other instruments are introduced. On a South Indian dulcimer, a “santur”, Burchard euphorically taps the strings with large sweeping movements and moves to them. Sometimes he misses the instrument with the mallets and strikes the wooden frame. The structure of the song does not reveal itself to the world music layman - it starts and stops again at some point. “Now we're getting a bit louder,” says Burchard after a few rather quiet songs and the audience shouts ”It's about time!” The drums are now used, accompanied by Christian Schmidhofer playing the Kanjira, a South Indian drum. With virtuoso vibraphone solos, the band makes the walls of the Exhaus shake and the audience boil: In the back rows, a man in his mid-thirties with a moustache performs adventurous movements and would have been a hit at any disco in the 80s with his unconventional “dance”. Only the sandals with orange socks would have been fatal back then. With a kind of belly dance, an audience member tries to translate the somewhat uncontrolled chaos of the band into movements. Others discreetly hold back and simply tap their feet. Admittedly, those who are familiar with the “world music” genre will have been thrilled by Embryo's performance. Those who prefer to listen to conservative music may even find the band “Tokio Hotel” to be professional after this concert evening.

Volksfreund, 2006/03/27