Emtidi

In 1970 the Canadian Dolly Holmes and Germany’s Maik Hirschfeldt, both committed hippies, first encountered each other in London. The pair soon relocated to Berlin to appear in the musical Hair, after which they established Emtidi and began playing the city’s underground venues with a repertoire limited to traditional acoustic folk music. Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser, who would later found the labels Ohr and Kosmische Kuriere, caught one of their sets and offered the duo a recording contract. Multi-track technology allowed them to enlarge their palette on the album Saat, a sadly little-known masterpiece that fused folk, art rock, and psychedelic elements into a singular sound.

Dolly Holmes soon exited the group and returned to Canada. Maik Hirschfeldt settled in a village near Munich and recruited Rudi Haunreiter, Georg Karger, and Franz Müller for a new configuration. Although the musicians spent several years shaping material for a never-released third LP, they never performed live again and ultimately disbanded after failing to locate a fitting replacement for Dolly Holmes. Maik Hirschfeldt withdrew from the music world altogether, while the other three musicians formed the jazz-rock band Niagara and remain active across various jazz projects. Rudi Haunreiter later supplied drums on several albums by the dark, ambient synthesist Peter Frohmader. Today Maik Hirschfeldt arranges rallies in Africa and plays guitar only occasionally for his own amusement.