Embryo

One of the most inventive and wide-ranging acts to emerge from the Krautrock scene, Embryo have long merged global folk traditions with their signature blend of jazz-inflected space rock. Across more than five decades the collective has journeyed extensively, collaborating with hundreds of musicians and issuing a vast catalog of recordings. Their first release, the hard-psych opus Opal from 1970, gave way to Moroccan scales and indigenous instruments on later efforts such as the 1973 album We Keep On, while an extended overland trek across India informed the expansive double set Embryo's Reise in 1979. During the 1980s the band joined forces with Nigeria’s Yoruba Dun Dun Orchester, and subsequent travels through Asia colored the 1996 release Ni Hau. A partnership with New York’s No-Neck Blues Band yielded EmbryoNNCK in 2006, exposing the group to fresh listeners. After founder Christian Burchard passed away, his daughter Marja assumed direction and guided the ensemble to the 2021 album Auf Auf.

Originally rooted in jazzy space rock, Embryo came together in Munich in 1969 when ex-R&B and jazz organist Christian Burchard—handling vibraphone, hammer dulcimer, percussion, and marimba—assembled Edgar Hofmann on saxophone, Lothar Meid on bass, Jimmy Jackson on organ, Dieter Serfas and Wolfgang Paap on drums and percussion, Ingo Schmidt on saxophone, and John Kelly on guitar. The roster had already shifted by the time work began on their debut. That album, Opal, issued in 1970, stands as the pinnacle of the band’s early psychedelic phase. By Embryo's Rache in 1971, ethnic inflections had begun to surface.

The same year they performed at the 1972 Munich Olympics, the Goethe Institute sent Embryo on a tour of Northern Africa and Portugal. Exposure to Moroccan tonal systems during that journey left a lasting imprint on their evolving sound. In 1973 saxophonist Charlie Mariano and guitarist Roman Bunka joined, accelerating the shift toward a hybrid of space rock and world-music elements. We Keep On, also from 1973, became the group’s most commercially successful record.

Following the releases of Surfin’ in 1974 and Bad Heads & Bad Cats in 1975, Burchard felt the music tilting toward mainstream territory and organized an eight-month journey to India that brought the musicians into contact with local players. Indian vocalist Shobha Gurtu, encountered on those travels, later appeared on the 1979 album Apo Calypso. Around the same period Embryo co-founded the Schneeball label with Checkpoint Charlie, using it to issue Embryo's Reise in 1979 and La Blama Sparozzi - Zwischenzonen in 1982. A subsequent two-year expedition through the Middle East, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan ended with the band’s bus breaking down in Tehran amid the final stages of the 1979 Iranian Revolution; the odyssey was documented in the film Vagabunden-Karawane. In 1981 longtime members Uwe Müllrich and Michael Wehmeyer departed to form Embryo's Dissidenten, later shortened to Dissidenten. After further tours of Asia, the Middle East, and Egypt in the early 1980s, the group delivered the studio album Zack Gluck in 1984, then connected with Nigeria’s Yoruba Dun Dun Orchester, resulting in a 1985 studio recording and the live set Jazzbühne Berlin '89, also known as Live in Berlin.

Ibn Battuta, issued in 1994, drew on Middle Eastern influences and took three years to complete as both a CD and video. Ni Hau from 1996 featured throat singing alongside Chinese and Indian instrumentation. Embryo kept releasing new and archival material into the new century, among them the 2006 collaboration EmbryoNNCK with the No-Neck Blues Band. Burchard suffered a stroke in 2016 that ended his performing career, prompting daughter Marja to assume leadership. His final album with the band, It Do, appeared on Trikont in October 2016. Christian Burchard died in January 2018 at age 71. Marja recorded with Roman Bunka, Jan Weissenfeldt, and others, finishing Auf Auf in 2020. An admirer of the group, Madlib—who had jammed with them years earlier—was approached about the project, and the album surfaced on Madlib Invazion in November 2021.