For more than five decades, Embryo has been moving between worlds. Founded in Munich in 1969, the internationally connected collective is not a conventional band but a living organism: Kraut rock dissolves into jazz, free improvisation merges with inner- and outer-European rhythms, and sound rituals from distant cultures meet urban avant-garde. Generations, genres, and borders blur—driven by an openness that has always made Embryo singular.
After legendary collaborations with figures such as Mal Waldron, Okay Temiz, Fela Kuti, and Charlie Mariano, the spirit of the group continues today in a renewed form. Since 2015, Marja Burchard, daughter of founder Christian Burchard, has carried Embryo forward—guided by curiosity, wanderlust, and an unrelenting desire to embrace new musical ways of thinking.
On this album, released on Toy Tonics’ sublabel Kryptox, decades-long friendships crystallize into a shimmering weave of melody, pulse, and improvisation. Embryo joins forces here with Indian musicians Deobrat Mishra and Prashant Mishra, with whom they have shared musical paths for more than fifteen years. Their first encounter with Christian Burchard and Embryo in 2008—during a concert at Zurich’s Wasserkirche—marked the beginning of a deep and lasting sonic kinship.
The recordings were made in 2023 at Minga Records Studio in Munich with Tobias Siegert. Special guests add further luminous colors: Niko Schabel on The Gift and Moonwalk, Kolkata-born singer Dr. Chandreyee Maitra on Rivers, and Bangalore-based bansuri player Dattatreya Desai on Mishra Dance.
The core lineup of the album forms an alchemical circle:
Marja Burchard on vibraphone, Maasl Maier on bass and flute, Jakob Thun on drums—together with the Varanasi-born sitar virtuoso and vocalist Deobrat Mishra and his nephew Prashant Mishra on tabla.
Deobrat Mishra is widely regarded as one of India’s most energetic and innovative sitar players—a representative of the eleventh generation of the Benares gharana tradition, whose playing glows with melodic finesse and rhythmic intricacy. Prashant Mishra, meanwhile, stands among the most outstanding young tabla masters of the same lineage: precise, fiery, yet deeply sensitive and supportive. Together they stretch a sonic arc from centuries-old tradition into the vibrating present.
This album is not merely a meeting of musicians—it is a ritual of wood, metal, skin, and breath. A quiet spell that grows into ecstatic dance. A global dialogue that begins in Munich and radiates outward in countless directions.
Embryo on Kryptox:
a new chapter in an endless journey—shimmering, borderless, and open as the horizon itself.