OPAL

EMBRYO's "Opal" is a pure Krautrock masterpiece and certainly one of the more influential albums too that contributed to the genre. EMBRYO's band leader Christian Burchard (drummer/percussionist) was at the time hanging out with the AMON DUUL commune of freaks who had a symbiotic influence on each others music. Also joining Burchard on this debut album was John Kelly the future guitarist for TEN YEARS AFTER who gets lots of opportunity to add his fine fret work. "Opal" is predominantly an instrumental album with few voices and lyrics. I love Edgar Hoffman huge electric-violin and sax work here which really brings home the fusion of jazz and psych elements that they were intending to explore. Best way to maybe describe this album would be to imagine a sax playing fusion- era Miles Davis aka BITCHES BREW, with a touch of CAN and AMON DUUL II tossed into the equation. The album is a drastic fusion of rock, jazz, blues, soul and psychedelia and is a true milestone in the genre of psychedelic progressive rock.