Embryo (band)


Embryo is a band from Munich which began in 1969, although its origin can be traced to the 1950s in Hof when Christian Burchard and Dieter Serfas met the age of 10. The band was described by one critic as "the most eclectic of the krautrock bands."

History

In 1969 the band was founded by multi instrumentalist Christian Burchard and Edgar Hofmann. To date more than 400 musicians have played with the collective, some, such as Charlie Mariano, Trilok Gurtu, Ramesh Shotham, Marty Cook, Yuri Parfenov, Allan Praskin, X.Nie, Nick McCarthy, Monty Waters and Mal Waldron, have played on multiple occasions. Longtime members are Edgar Hofmann, Dieter Serfas, Roman Bunka, Uve Müllrich, Michael Wehmeyer, Chris Karrer, Lothar Stahl, and Jens Polheide.
With Ton Steine Scherben, they were founders of the first German independent label Schneeball in 1976.
In 1979 the band started a nine-month tour to India by bus which is documented in the movie "Vagabunden Karawane".
Embryo developed from jazzy Krautrock to a world music band which is able to merge different styles and trends. Many of their albums originated during collective journeys on 4 continents. The band played many festivals around the globe: in India, England, Nigeria, Japan to name a few. In July 2008, Embryo was awarded the German World Music Award RUTH 2008 at the TFF Rudolstadt Festival.
In 1981, Müllrich and Wehmeyer left Embryo to form "Embryo's Dissidenten" who soon became Dissidenten.
On the road to Marokko in March 2016 Christian Burchard had a stroke.
Since then Marja Burchard, daughter of Christian Burchard, who grew up with the band, is leading Embryo.
On January 17, 2018 Christian Burchard died in Munich. He was 71 years old.

Discography