“Jovi” is the song of a hummingbird that will guide our protagonist, Talina, through the many fates she will encounter in Gwandena, a narrative album informed by Ale Lanza’s research into Afro-Andean-Amazonian rhythms and Bolivia’s indigenous traditions and singing, especially the songs and stories of her grandparents. “I learned about the world-view of the Guaraní culture”, says Lanza, “especially from two important texts where I found that the mystical and the mysterious are combined in such a way that the characters of Gwandena are born and are found among dreams, rituals, the sacred and the profane.”
“When singing their languages, they take me to another time, to the nostalgia of the beginning of all things”, she adds about her signing in both Guaraní and Quechua, along with Spanish, throughout the album. Adding to this connection with an ancestral Bolivia, “Jovi” also features traditional Andean instruments such as the ronroco guitar, toyo, quena and quenacho flutes, and wankara and caja percussion, by the Bolivian musician and arranger Cucó Pachá Kutí, with Bolivian producer Chuntu adding keyboards, synths and samplers, deftly finding a meeting-point between the modern and sacred.
lyrics
Joviyazuri, Joviyazuri..
El son de mi alma viaja
viaja en las aves hacia...
El son de mi alma viaja
viaja en las aves hacia ti...hacia ti...
Durmiendo está
Va a despertar
Del cielo viene
Es tu cristal
Soñé que me ibas a soñar
Joviyazuri, Joviyazuri...
Y al despertar
La inmensidad
Enciende el fuego
Andá probá
Cantá secretos
Abrillantá... Yasitata vera vera...
Joviyazuri
Joviyazury...
credits
from Gwandena,
track released September 16, 2022
Ale Lanza: vocals, percussion and samplers
Chuntu: keyboards, synths and samplers
Luciel Izumi: ronroco
Cucó Pachá Kutí: toyos, quenas, quenachos and other wind instruments, and percussion
Miguel Crespo: wankara and caja
Lyrics by TIMPANA (Alejandra Lanza)
Music by Chuntu (Simón Peña) & TIMPANA (Alejandra Lanza)
TIMPANA creates her own sound based on native vocal techniques from Bolivia and the
world.
Since 2009 with her debut album Alma Perdida she has come with a world music influence that now with Gwandena she experiments even more with electronic elements and sounds, indigenous instruments, native songs in Spanish, Quechua and Guarani, with a strong Afro Andean Amazonian influence....more
Je me suis effondrée en larmes dès les premières notes de certaines chansons. Elle a perdu sa mère, j'ai perdu mon père. Album magnifique comme toute son œuvre! C'est son dernier album et j'espère qu'elle en créera d'autres! Lavinie Cloutier
I love these women. the voices mesh together perfectly; also the world music is exceptional. I have all of their albums and they're all excellent. Give them a listen. Steve Lake