Embryo
Steig Aus

The Embryo is a German band that has been playing around the world for nearly 40 years, yet they are not so well-known that even Debaser has forgotten them. I would like to fill the gap, even though the space is vast, with this my first review.

The LP in question was released in 1973 when the Vietnam War officially ended; in Italy, we had some "minor issues" concerning public order, Neapolitans had to deal with a severe cholera epidemic, and our country was entering into Austerity due to the oil crisis.

I was 17 years old and had been spending my days for at least three years listening to music on a rudimentary stereo turntable. The LPs that played most on my turntable were from "Banco," "Le Orme," or various other works of English "Prog" that you are very familiar with. However, among us friends, records that initially seemed strange for at least two reasons began to circulate: the first because they came from Germany, and the second because they sounded revolutionary to our ears. To be honest, at first, we listened to these things because it was "cool," but then, little by little, we entered this incredible sonic universe known as "Krautrock" or "Cosmic Music." I won't tell you about Can or Tangerine Dream, but Embryo eluded us at the time, and I don't know why. World Music wasn't even in gestation, and these guys were already thinking about allowing Mediterranean sounds to contaminate them, picking up that way of approaching ethnic music to learn new scales or harmonies that went beyond our European way of making rock.

This record is their fourth, released in 1973 with recordings even dating back two years earlier, and this is even more astonishing when we think that they are Germans, geographically distant from the African coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. We Italians should have thought of it, but we realized it decades later.

Playing with them are two former Amon Düül members, and the result of their work is creative, convincing, and genuinely innovative music. Truly impressive these Embryo, who have always had the courage to put themselves out there with the goal of continual renewal and the courage not to want to impose what they have learned but always to learn from other cultures, creating music that transcends any boundaries.

Recommended, if we want to condense the definition, to those searching for excellent Jazz-Rock (the concept of fusion came later) with ethnic influences.