Montoya's New Album is Out Now!
ZZK Records Presents “Tayta”, The New Album by Montoya
An Inner Journey Toward Deep Listening
Riding the bus from Bogotá to Mocoa in southern Colombia opens a threshold. Fifteen hours on the road not only traverse mountains and jungles, but shift one’s perception into an altered state. This is where “Tayta” begins, emerging from an experience where sound is alive.
At Cantos de la Tierra, a gathering space focused on ancestral knowledge and traditional plant medicine – guided by Taita Manuelito – listening is an essential practice. Sound is no longer understood as an aesthetic resource, but a living structure: memory that vibrates, energy that organizes, a tool capable of altering consciousness. Music becomes a bridge between visible and invisible realms.
“Tayta” grew out of that experience – not as a representation of ritual, but a trace left behind; a sonic body that finds a way to speak without words and inhabit hidden layers of reality. Nine carefully crafted tracks move through different moments of the process, like stations on a soul-searching inner journey.
The opener, “Putumayo,” shows us the path – signifying a geographical and perceptual movement southwards using sampled voices and synth textures. “Tayta” draws upon bouncy beats and a lively marimba motif to propose a new way of being, which holds on to innocence and faces the unknown with humility, while recognizing the ambivalent force of nature, at once light yet overwhelming.
Next up, “Fantasia” – which features ethereal vocals by Elasi over a minimal rhythmic underflow – questions the expectations we project onto both ritual practice and our own lives. “Oddu,” a catchy collaboration with Italian producer/DJ Clap! Clap!, engages with Yoruba tradition and its understanding of death as part of life through choral incantations and a driving groove.
“La Danza del Sapito” hinges on a hypnotic house beat and glitchy flute samples – emerging from the intensity of Kambò, a traditional Amazonian medicinal practice which uses tree frog venom, leaving its physical and emotional imprint on the body in a profound cycle of purification.
The Buenos Aires neo-soul crew Alumine join Montoya on “Brillar,” providing delicately phased vocals which invite us to shake off restrictive personal structures as a radical act of trust in the creative process.
“Conoto Yopú” imagines closing a circle of shared words, with the sonic presence of the mochilero bird channeled through a kalimba, flutes and violins. And finally, the surreal soundscape of “Mocoa” opens on more whimsical strings, coupled with spacey synth melodies which invoke the importance of childhood as a foundational aspect of identity – a quiet center that continues to resonate throughout our lives.
Rather than documenting a spiritual experience, “Tayta” translates it. With deep respect for the territories and practices that inspire it, the album unfolds as an intimate space where our ancestors imbue each sound with a memory that does not fully belong to this time.
The album’s visual language is an extension of the music: Mexican artist Diego Ocote plays with the artisanal weaving of chaquira beads as a metaphor for how each tune is constructed from individual sonic cells which form patterns and layers that converge into a single coherent composition – while a cosmic background conveys the infinity of time. Striking photographs by Vladimir Encina show Montoya at one with the forest landscape where this record came into existence.
“Tayta” does not offer answers. It is a threshold – a place where closing your eyes does not mean disappearing, but beginning to see.