2006/03/22
Continuous flow heater
Embryo, currently a five-piece, bring their world music to “bed”
Christian Burchard has traveled the world. The Munich native would never have dreamed that he would one day park his old Mercedes bus in front of an apple wine bar in Sachsenhausen to make music. But right here, in the heart of Frankfurt's “Bembel” coziness, a new club has taken up residence. The “Bett” invites the stylistic boundlessness in which a band like Embryo is at home. A continuous flow heater that has been home to more than 300 (!) musicians. Embryo have been playing their way through the clubs of Europe since 1969, touring incessantly and with preference in Asia and North Africa. The award-winning film Embryo's Reise (1978/79) has memorably captured this time of awakening for posterity.
The evening begins in the most unspectacular way imaginable. Christian Burchard and Lothar Stahl engage in an intense dialog on vibraphone and marimba against a percussive background of darabuka and oud. A small mouth organ takes the lead in the meditative intro. A gentle introduction. The collective improvisations are transformed into the high-energy continuum familiar from Embryo. A world music that draws from many sources, at times heated, inspired at times by the slyness of John Cage, then again by the astro-sound of Sun Ra.
The world musicians are appreciated by fans from a wide variety of musical backgrounds and - they are constantly reinventing themselves. Not least because they succeed in bringing young musicians into the collective. Talents such as Nick McCarthy (now successful with Franz Ferdinand), who still raves about his five-year “apprenticeship” with the Embryos. Or David Drudis, the Spaniard who is currently not only playing the oud in the world music project, but also knows how to express himself even more excitingly with the electric guitar.
Where a moment ago there was meditative calm, suddenly creative chaos breaks out. With a grin and spurred on by drums and electric bass, Burchard lurches across the keyboard - another way of traveling with Embryo.
Gerd Döring, Frankfurter Rundschau, 2006/03/24
(Translated from: https://web.archive.org/web/20061012095448/http://www.embryo.de/presse_2006.htm)