CURAWAKA: Newest Single/Video ‘OLOKUN’ Offers Ode To Mothers, Daughters, & Waters Of Life
Formed by artists from Norway, Mexico, and Argentina, CURAWAKA brings a rich cultural tapestry to the stage. The group is led by vocalist and songwriter Anna Bariyani.
~ photography courtesy of Curawaka ~
Across thousands of miles of land and sea, on the other end of the screen sits Anna Bariyani, founder, frontperson and creative anchor of the international conscious music collective Curawaka. Speaking from a cozy London cafe, her voice instantly cuts through the static of our modern, hyper-accelerated reality. There is a groundedness to her cadence; a measured, resolute rhythm that mirrors the ancient natural world she so fiercely advocates for in her art.
As a new fan and music reporter rooted in the Bay Area, my intention was to tap into the magic and mystique behind Curawaka, already wildly popular on the other side of the world. To explore the genetics and trace the lineage of a band that has swiftly earned a sterling reputation for bridging the gaps between medicine ceremonies in the jungles of Peru, and bright lights/loud speakers on major world music festival stages.
With two critically acclaimed albums under their belt: breakout debut Call of the Wild and the lush, expansive canvas of 2023’s Dreamtime, Curawaka is poised for further global glory with latest single and music video, “OLOKUN“.
“OLOKUN”: Invoking the Mysteries of the Deep Sea
The collective’s latest creative offering serves as a direct extension of this foundational ethos; and that raw, elemental magic is precisely what powers their stunning release, “OLOKUN”. If Curawaka’s embryonic works were odes to the earth and the wild forests, this track is dives into the oceanic subconscious.
Named after the revered Orisha spirit of the deep sea and ruler of all bodies of water in the West African Yoruba tradition, “OLOKUN” serves as a towering, seven-minute prayer for the world’s oceans. In the Candomblé traditions of Brazil, a country that heavily shaped Curawaka’s formative years, Olokun is revered as the ancient, primordial mother of Yemanja.
By marrying modern world music with traditional indigenous chants and melodies, Curawaka crafts an auditory environment that beckons we slow down and listen to the pulse of the natural world. The feature single pushes their stylistic evolution even further, blending crisp acoustic instrumentation with ambrosial textures, creating a harmonic space between worlds ancient and contemporary.
The sublime track is a slow-burning tapestry of the sacred coalescing with subtle earworm sensibilities bubbling beneath the surface. It weaves together crisp, intricate string work of Alberto Arroyo’s guitar with earthy, dancing textures of Tavo Vazquez’s charango and quena flute, and Dario Santamaria Romero‘s beautiful silverflute. The mesmerizing, duet-vocal performance with Kathi von Koerber resonates like an incantation.
The origin story of “OLOKUN” is intertwined with the sacred feminine and the continuation of life. Anna serendipitously received the central melody of the track on the day before giving birth to her second daughter. Standing at the edge of the shore, making a physical offering to the ocean to ask the sea deities for a blessed, safe birth, the song unexpectedly pushed through the waves and into her consciousness.
To bring this musical medicine to life, Anna joined forces with her longtime friend and mentor, Kathi von Koerber. a dancer and filmmaker who has spent decades studying under indigenous elders across Africa and the Americas, Von Koerber lends her haunting harmonies and melodies to the scintillating song. Together, as mothers of daughters, they stand at the shoreline carrying a joint prayer for the waters of the world.
Their music video acts as a visually rich and sensory-driven hymn dedicated completely to the preservation and spiritual purification of water. With societies becoming increasingly defined by ecological fracturing and climate volatility, Curawaka positions their sound art and concert experience as a form of defiant activism.
The breathtaking visual companion to “OLOKUN” elevates the track from an auditory prayer to a striking cinematic ritual. The music video is an intentionally crafted treatment that visually traces the “motherline”, the unbroken energetic lineage that runs through the waters of life, that connects grandmothers, mothers, and daughters across generations.
Filmed in Bali and Ibiza, two contrasting yet spiritually charged locations, the video enhances the song’s cross-cultural message. Clad in flowing garments that mirror the natural movement of the tide, Anna and Kathi glide with an celestial, embodied reverence. The camera catches the light dancing off the breaking waves, juxtaposing the vast, unpredictable power of the ocean with the delicate, tender interactions of the women. An artful, graceful, and grateful vehicle for Curawaka’s core philosophy: water heals, and in turn, we must heal the waters.
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The Genesis: A Trio Born in the Brazilian Jungle
To understand the vastness of the Curawaka sonic palette, one must first trace the river back to its headwaters. The band’s DNA was forged far from the fjords of Anna’s homeland Norway, instead mined from within the humid, pulsating heart of the South American rainforest.
“Curawaka has been going since 2014,” Anna reflects, her comments pausing with ghost notes, eyes drifting as she dials back a decade of memories. “We started as a trio in Brazil. Myself, I was coming out of a longer stay in the jungle with some indigenous tribes.”
That immersive, spiritually-abundant period was both a transformative personal chapter, and the catalyst for a new musical paradigm. For Anna and her early collaborators, sitting with tribal elders meant unlearning the rigid, intellectualized structures of Western music and tuning into something far more primal.
“I wanted to learn more about how to connect with those frequencies of healing and that direct, imminent, immediate relation that indigenous people have with the land, with the earth, with nature,” Anna explains. “I was very inspired by the indigenous way of using song and music. It was just mind-blowing to me, the potency of that.”
This enlightening communion with the elements birthed a calling. Anna realized that music could transcend casual entertainment, operating instead as a literal medium for global alignment. “I guess I felt called to share music in my own way with a similar approach, fascinated by how music can be a form of healing,” she says. “They can do real magic with sound and with voice. That inspired me a lot.”
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Flowing Forward
As Anna continued to wax melodic, philosophic, reflective, and spiritual, it became increasingly more clear that Curawaka’s ambitions aim far higher than merely a musical project, it is a living, breathing, evolving ecosystem in itself. The group mines their hymns and harmonies from the earth, manifests them into song, nurtures the music in conscious communities far and wide, before releasing their gossamer anthems like smoke into a world that is wounded, starved for authenticity and balance.
With “OLOKUN” offering a sonic balm for the global collective/consciousness, the band continues to look toward the horizon. As Anna hinted, the creative waters are constantly swirling, with an extensive Autumn tour in the pipeline, and more new music patiently gestating for their much-anticipated third album. There’s even a bit of chatter about a forthcoming collection of electronic remixes sourced from the Curawaka catalog of original tunes, reimagined by an eclectic assembly of dance music producers from all over the world.
In a modern landscape fragmented by a cacophony of digital and spiritual noise, Curawaka’s medicine remains beautifully, unapologetically transmitted loud and clear: listen to the ancestors, honor the motherline, and let the water flow in a spiral.
words: B.Getz
To dive further into Curawaka’s expansive sonic medicine, you can hit the website, explore the Curawaka Bandcamp to support their music directly, or watch the full cinematic prayer on the Curawaka Official YouTube Channel