Just two months after its formation, the jazz rock band Dzyan, named after an ancient creation text of Tibetan origin, recorded their first eponymous album in early 1972. The quintet from Frankfurt, which never performed live, consisted of Jochen Leuschner (voc, perc), Dieter Kramer (g), Gerd Ehrmann (sax), Reinhard Karwatky (b) and Ludwig Baum (dr, perc). Their mainly instrumental and improvised compositions consisted of long space-rock improvisations based on jazz grooves and strange electro-acoustic sounds, obviously inspired by the Canterbury sound of the band Soft Machine. Acoustic percussion rhythms lent the whole thing an additional mystical-ethnic sound. The debut album with a spectacular cover design was released in April 1972 on the small Aronda label. A few months later, the quintet was reduced to a trio, including several line-up changes, which would record two more LPs.
Nowadays, this first album is seen as the German answer to the Canterbury scene and is a very rare Krautrock rarity.
