Ibiza's favourite medicine music ensemble Curawaka release Dreamtime, a follow-up album of prayers and prophecies that celebrates the infinite beauty of life and nature.

From the frozen embrace of the <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/travel/iceland-trip-to-the-heart-of-the-extreme" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Northern Lights</a> and the crystalline winters of Scandinavia, Curawaka's visionary storytelling carries listeners across the oceans to the jungles of the Amazon, the deserts of Mexico and the mighty Andes mountains. Curawaka's new album Dreamtime&nbsp;features collaborations with indigenous leaders, elders and wisdom keepers from around the world along with songs and prayers to the planet. L'OFFICIEL IBIZA spoke to Curawaka's lead vocalist and songwriter <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/music/curawakas-sacred-musical-style-thats-enthralling-ibiza" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Anna Bariyani</a> about her journey to medicine music and why the timing of this album is so important.&nbsp;
<blockquote>
 LOI: You were raised in Norway yet founded Curawaka in Latin America. How did your journey with medicine music begin?
</blockquote>
AB: I have a master&rsquo;s degree in philosophy and after I left university, I was doing a lot of research trying to figure out all the things I was feeling and trying &ndash; for a long time &ndash; to find my way in academia. Somehow, I just couldn&rsquo;t. A week after I graduated, I had my first ceremony in the tipi with peyote. That threw me into a whole different path. I really found the university I was looking for. A year later I gave up my job and left for the jungle.
<blockquote>
 LOI: You ended up living with the Indigenous Huni Kuin people in the Brazilian Amazon. Can you tell me what that was like and what you learnt there?
</blockquote>
AB: I had actually been invited to go to Brazil as a philosopher on an organised project in the <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/nathalie-kelley-s-climate-column-june-23" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Amazon</a>. After two and a half weeks, when the project was done, I decided to stay. I lived with the Huni Kuin people for almost three months and went on a deep journey with ayahuasca. That was a very powerful process - the force of the medicine, the strength of the jungle. It was very hard, very difficult, but also absolutely enchanting. I decided that to go further on my journey I needed to speak the language, so I travelled around Brazil for a year and learned Portuguese. It was a tremendous adventure, going from medicine ceremony to medicine ceremony. I wanted to delve as deep into the mystery as I could. I returned to the jungle a year later, to a different tribe, speaking Portuguese. And so began a really deep immersion into their culture and the work with the medicine.
<blockquote>
 LOI: How were you accepted as a lone woman travelling alone in the rainforest and what did that feel like?
</blockquote>
AB: I was definitely the exotic bird in the Amazon to begin with! It was quite hard, quite challenging. The cultural clash felt quite profound at times, especially in the early days with the Huni Kuin when I didn&rsquo;t speak Portuguese. I was an unmarried woman, 27 years old, with no children, not travelling with a brother or chaperone. It was a little bit shocking. I think they thought I was some kind of strange child because I didn't know how to do women's things, like weaving and foraging. They gave me a child&rsquo;s basket when I helped to collect roots. After around two months, the female elders finally accepted me and gave me a name &ndash; Masp&atilde; &ndash; which means &lsquo; a medicine that brings good energy&rsquo;. Later I got the name Baripixiani, meaning ribcage of the sun.&nbsp;

<blockquote>
 LOI: After many years in Latin America with your daughter and your partner, you felt a pull to return to the north. What did that feel like?
</blockquote>
AB: I started kind of getting ill in the tropics, my body wasn&rsquo;t happy, and every night I would dream about the ice and the snow and being called home. When I drank ayahuasca it would talk to me about the north and tell me I was needed by own people. I felt very clear instructions coming through the ceremonies and through the medicine that I was being called to the ice. I felt as though I had been to the end of the world and beyond, like my soul had been to the other side of the galaxy many times over. Because of <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/nathalie-kelley-s-climate-column" target="_blank" rel="noopener">climate change</a>, the glaciers in the north are melting and there&rsquo;s a very ancient consciousness that is waking up and it needs someone to talk to it. It needs somebody to be there to have that dialogue and hold space for that change.&nbsp;
<blockquote>
 LOI: Rather magically you ended up as a Northern Lights guide and found a way to call to the lights through song. Where and how did that happen?
</blockquote>
AB: I journeyed very far north, farther north than I&rsquo;d ever been, and lived inside the Arctic Circle for three consecutive winters. I rented a little house on Kval&oslash;ya, or Whale Island, as far away from everything as you can get. I would spend every night just making a fire and playing my drum to the Northern Lights and just connecting so deeply with the phenomenon. And I realised that the songs that I had learned in my training in the jungle - the ones that would call the force of the medicine, or that would call the spirits of the land - they worked on the Northern Lights too. Of course, it&rsquo;s all just spirit but it felt very magical when I would drum and sing those songs, and then she would come out and dance. I connected very deeply with the people of the north at that time too and spent a lot of time just walking in the mountains and being outside and singing and making fire and visiting the wolves and eating amanita muscaria, which is the medicine of the northern ancestors. Basically, communicating with nature and natural forces.&nbsp;

<blockquote>
 LOI: In terms of the new album, how does it reflect your journey so far? What influences are you calling upon and what is the purpose of the record?&nbsp;
</blockquote>
AB: The album is called Dreamtime, and this is a concept from the far north that relates to the winter, when the whole land is sleeping, we say that Mother Nature goes into a dream state. And it's a beautiful metaphor for the dark times we're going through as humanity, acknowledging that we're living in times of great turmoil and somehow acknowledging that we're standing in front of a global crisis. It&rsquo;s a reminder to retreat into the cycles of nature and the teachings of the ancient cultures, the stories, the songs. They all talk about the cycles &ndash; how after each winter, there's another spring and how important it is to return to the silence, to darkness, to hibernation. Not everything has to be luminous all the time.
<blockquote>
 LOI: You collaborated with many First Nations elders on the record. Why was that so important to you?
</blockquote>
AB: The First Nations people are the original wisdom keepers, so we wanted to give a voice to them as guardians of the land. We believe deeply that this is the time to stand up and form alliances and build bridges between the tribes. To do that, we must listen to the elders, because they are the only ones that hold the keys for our survival. If anybody knows how to live sustainably, it is them, because their connection with nature and with their land is intact. Their wisdom is what we want to honour and give expression to, across four distinct regions &ndash; the Andes, the Mexican desert, Amazon and the Arctic - the four corners of my world. The album is about fulfilling the great prophecies of alliance, the unifying of the north and the south, the masculine and the feminine, and passing this knowledge on to the <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/children-of-the-revolution" target="_blank" rel="noopener">children</a> of the world. We must hand them a torch that is blazing brightly, for it is their future, not ours, that needs protecting. We are the ancestors of tomorrow.

'We are the ancestors of tomorrow' - Curawaka’s Anna Bariyani

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