EMBRYO — Embryo's Reise (review)

EMBRYO — Embryo's Reise album cover Album · 1979 · World Fusion Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Sean Trane
This double album is certainly one of the best attempts to fuse progressive-type rock with ethnic/world music and few have succeeded as well as Embryo's Reise (voyage). Indeed around the departure of the ever-important Roman Bunka from the group, plans had been made to travel from Istanbul to Pakistan and Nepal, while recording their musical encounters with the indigenes found on their paths. The album is not just that, there are also tracks coming from left, right & centre, but overall, that's a fair description of the album's content. Among Embryo's latest recruits were guitarist Drexler (ex-Out Of Focus) and wind player Josch (ex-Missus Beastly) whom were part of the trip. The gatefold vinyl comes with a deliciously illustrated booklet detailing their trip in both German and English texts. I hear the Cd version has that too, but I doubt of the legibility of the format.

Where this album is an important one for progheads is that the track list is abounding of jams between the Embryo members and the local musicians, sometimes resulting to some absolutely stunning jams. Difficult to start describing these jams, but most had a structure for conventional entendre (no free form or voluntarily dissonant). The group was giving improvised multimedia concerts along the way, some including stunning live performance paintings. In either case, I'm sure they brought back hundreds of hours of jams and gave us a small selection here. Some of these jams are actually really successful, mixing perfectly the European (often electric) rock musicians and the often-acoustic local musicians (such as the opening Road To Asia), while others are more ethnic players playing their stuff while Europeans are waiting for a chance to hop on boards. On the other hand there are some openly and wildly saturated guitar rock pieces.

Symbolic of the 70's hippy dream, this road is now highly unlikely to all western or eastern youth as international conflicts have long rendered the road impossible to accomplish safely nowadays. A real must and not only in
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Jazz Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

JMA TOP 5 Jazz ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
A Love Supreme Post Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
Kind of Blue Cool Jazz
MILES DAVIS
Buy this album from our partners
The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady Progressive Big Band
CHARLES MINGUS
Buy this album from our partners
Blue Train Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
My Favorite Things Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners

New Jazz Artists

New Jazz Releases

Green Puma / Tropical Dandy Jazz Related Rock
THE LINK QUARTET
Buy this album from MMA partners
Vinny Golia Quintet : Can You Outrun Them? 21st Century Modern
VINNY GOLIA
Buy this album from MMA partners
Bow Code Fusion
SAMPO HIUKKANEN
Buy this album from MMA partners
Anthem For No Man’s Land Jazz Related Improv/Composition
ANDREAS SCHAERER
Buy this album from MMA partners
Cabaret Eclectic Fusion
MARIUS NESET
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Jazz Online Videos

Paper Plane Pilot
MIKE DE SOUZA
js· 3 hours ago
Green Puma
THE LINK QUARTET
js· 3 hours ago
Heavy Cream
SAMPO HIUKKANEN
js· 5 hours ago
Sunday afternoon
FURIO DI CASTRI
snobb· 18 hours ago
Harmônicos
FABIANO DO NASCIMENTO
js· 1 day ago
More videos

New JMA Jazz Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Jazz News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed