Paykuna - new album & videos

Paykuna - A matter of the heart

It all started in 2016 in the rehearsal rooms of the Jazz School Lucerne. Weekly 6 musicians met to play, arrange and jam together. The harmony was right and so Demian Coca seized the opportunity and founded the band Paykuna. After a concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival (ok… not as an official act, we were the second opening band of the jam session) it was clear that Paykuna would be a longer term project. We recorded our first album «Raíces» and tours in Switzerland, Austria and even a trip to Slovakia followed.

Demian Coca, bandleader and composer of Paykuna, grew up with the traditional music of Bolivia thanks to his father. This is the source of inspiration for all the compositions Demian writes. The goal is a musical symbiosis between folklore and jazz.

Rinakaruy - More than an album

Rinakaruy means «to go on a journey» in Quechua. What you can see in the slideshow above are the illustrations Rafael Koller created for our album «Rinakaruy». The cover is a layering of the individual artworks, with each illustration embodying one of the seven compositions.

The compositions are inspired by Bolivian landscapes. What does the wind sound like as it sweeps across the white desert of the Salar de Uyuni at night? What melodies can you hear when you dive into the lagoons of the Altiplano? To what groove do the beings of the jungle dance in the lowlands of Bolivia?

In collaboration with contemporary dancer Laura Mercado, Demian Coca has assembled a team of dance and video artists who will record one video in Bolivia for each of the pieces Uyuni, Q’ocha, Alas and Tunari. In each of the videos, at least one dancer will improvisationally interpret Paykuna’s music. We already used this concept for our first album production (you can see the result below). But this time the videos should be an integral part of the «product». So we don’t make video clips for our singles, but everything belongs to the album Rinakaruy equally: The illustrations, the music and the videos.

We decided not to produce CDs for this album anymore. Instead, prints of the illustrations will be available for purchase after the release. The album cover is available as a square postcard, the individual illustrations can be purchased as a poster (A2 or A1). With every purchase of a print there is of course a download code for the music and the videos included.

This is what I need backing for.

With our second album we have undertaken a lot… So much that, unfortunately, we can not handle the financial expenses alone. The year 2020 was not easy for anyone. That’s why we are all the more grateful for any support, no matter how small.

Our expenses include the studio costs, the mixing/mastering of the audio files, a photo shoot, a new website, promo and marketing costs and of course all costs around the four video productions in Bolivia (travel expenses, catering for the shooting days, fees of the film crew and the artists, management etc.). In order to realize our project we need at least 5’000 CHF.

Please have a look at the rewards on the right side of this page. We hope that there is something interesting for everyone and of course we are happy if you pre-order our album this way. We are infinitely grateful for your help and are already looking forward to sending you the rewards.

Antoine, Nicolas, Mario, Balz, Demian, Marius and Adi