Photo Credit: Gonzalo Donoso
NYC-based Latin-alternative project THE KOIWAY returns with “Cordillera,” a stirring new single that feels less like a song and more like a living archive — of memory, migration, and the invisible mountains we carry within us. Led by Chilean musician and producer Víctor Vildósola, THE KOIWAY continues to carve out a space where ancestral sound, contemporary production, and socially conscious storytelling converge with striking emotional clarity.
At its core, “Cordillera” is a meditation on origin and movement. Drawing from Andean folk traditions while grounding itself in modern Latin-alternative production, the track reflects on the roads left behind and the inner geographies shaped by ancestry, displacement, and lived experience. It’s music that listens as much as it speaks — intimate, expansive, and deeply human.
The accompanying video elevates the release into something truly cinematic. Featuring a moving performance by Héctor Noguera, one of Chile’s most revered actors and a cornerstone of Latin American arts, the visual centers around a recitation from “Los Nuevos Pueblos” by legendary poet Raúl Zurita — recipient of Chile’s National Arts Prize and the Reina Sofía Award for Ibero-American Poetry. The result is a powerful dialogue between sound, spoken word, and image, where poetry and performance collapse time and geography into a shared emotional space.
True to THE KOIWAY’s ethos, “Cordillera” doesn’t just explore identity — it embodies it. The project has become known for immersive performances that foreground diversity, migration, and collective memory, inviting listeners into stories that feel both deeply personal and universally resonant. There’s a quiet insistence here: that art can be a vessel for remembrance, and that music can hold histories that words alone cannot.
The release arrives ahead of THE KOIWAY’s upcoming performance at the NYC Performing Arts Center on December 18, setting the stage for a live experience that promises to be as emotionally rich and connective as the record itself.
With “Cordillera,” THE KOIWAY offers more than a single — it’s a reminder that our inner landscapes are shaped by where we come from, what we carry forward, and the stories we choose to honor along the way.
