EMBRYO

La Blama Sparozzi

“Intermediate Zones”

Reissue : Remastered, New Artwork

Schneeball Records, founded in 1976, at least for a decade, had a lasting influence on the music in Germany with its releases.

In this period EMBRYO “La Blama Sparozzi” was born in 1981. A milestone in the new concept of EMBRYO after the huge success of “EMBRYO’S REISE” which brought the band cult status in the alternative scene, if it didn’t have it before. However, the success led to serious ideological disputes among the musicians: What is the value of success in relation to the joy of playing and creativity? These internal differences led to the splitting off of the DISSIDENTEN.

So much for a closer understanding of the uncompromisingness with which this double this double-LP was put together and what a frontal attack it is against the listening habits of the early 80s. On top of that it was also an artistic frontal attack against the former colleagues and a radical turning away from market conform trend thinking.

In retrospect, at the latest since this point in time, one can speak of a development of “Munich-style world music”, which many musicians still follow today and which many musicians orientate themselves to this day and refer to it in their work.

As a unique selling point compared to the later emerged term “Worldmusic”, which became a marketing tool for foreign folk and related genres, “world music” requires composers and performers to go a deeper dive, even study, into the structures of the music they are music they are getting involved with.

Inevitable is the desire and curiosity for foreign cultures and the acquaintance with the local masters: to learn and to improvise at eye level, to internalize way of life and philosophy, and if possible, vibrating on the same wavelength, to feel power from the harmony spiritually.

Another prerequisite for success is compositional work on the basis of a common improvisation. “La Blama Sparozzi” can convey this: itself playing a unifying role between artists from different parts of the world becomes possible and is one of the most exciting documents on this double LP.

Just as no two concerts should be the same, this “La Blama Sparozzi” draws from diversity. Listening habits can be changed, horizons can be broadened, prejudices can be broken down: this was the pedagogical approach of the restless composer and bandleader Christian Burchard, who has traveled to three continents in just a few years with ever-changing Ensembles.

Peter Michael Hamel of Klangraum Aschau and director of the Intercultural Music Institute Musikinstitut comments on the album in the following:

What a wonderful reunion! This double album was so important at that time, because Embryo did not fall apart after the Great Journey. Our Between Band, among others, had broken up in the early 1980s.

Embryo was also shaken by crises, upheavals, disputes, separations, dissidentism. You can feel that in the pieces. But Embryo continued to exist. And symbolically exactly with this double LP: a wild, uncommercial, partly angular enterprise, hard, fresh, relentless, on the highest level and uncompromising.

The versatile multiple and the common whole, with musicians from all over the world, especially from Africa, and also with Embryo veteran Edgar Hofmann, with later radio playwright Ulli Bassenge and with Amon Düül friend Chris Karrer.

Surely these are not the catchiest pieces, no light listening possible. But: Unbelievable what all has come together here. There is also a reminiscence of Kabul, with the Rebabmeister Ustad Omar, who died in 1980, some songs are on it, Grace Yoon sings at the end and Roman Bunka mostly present, next to Christian Burchard the most important for me on these two LPs.

– **Peter Michael Hamel

Tracklist

LP1

  1. Abart (04:20)
  2. Reportage (06:54)
  3. Xingu (01:35)
  4. La Blama Sparozzi (08:35)
  5. Jay (01:28)
  6. Computer Killer (02:52)
  7. Cimbalero (02:55)
  8. Zapata Pasteta (07:24)
  9. Kehlig Selig (07:18)
  10. Duo (01:10)

LP2

  1. Mundbogen 9 (03:31)
  2. El Moro (06:25)
  3. Fun-Bahia (07:22)
  4. Auf Gottes Auge wächst kein Gras (04:50)
  5. Evas Zimmer (00:46)
  6. Nigeria, Karnataka (04:38)
  7. Pia Pia (05:33)
  8. Wasserräder (06:10)
  9. Egypt Straat (03:59)
  10. Grace (01:20)