Gwandena from Gwandena by TIMPANA

“Gwandena” is one of the headiest moments from TIMPANA's new album, also called Gwandena. It's a sure shot of exhilaration, as Talina, the young girl at the heart of the album's narrative, gets swept up by a torrent of Afro-Andean-Amazonian rhythms. With instruments including the charango, the toyo (Andean flute), djembé and Afro-Bolivian percussion, and with lyrics that pass between Spanish and Quechua, it’s a song that reveals a lot about Bolivian culture. Far from the “Andean panpipe” image that is often conveyed, Bolivia is a multicultural society where African and Amazonian cultures are equally present, and where the natural world is never taken for granted.

TIMPANA is the project of Alejandra Lanza, a Bolivian singer, performer and actor. On Gwandena, her boldest release to date, she maps out a metaphysical journey across her home country, and through various states of being. Made with fellow Bolivian producer Chuntu and an array of Bolivia's finest string, percussion and wind players, it's set to finally put Bolivia on the contemporary music map.

TIMPANA creates her own sound based on native vocal techniques from Bolivia and the world.

Since 2009 with her debut album Alma Perdida she has come with a world music influence that now with Gwandena she experiments even more with electronic elements and sounds, indigenous instruments, native songs in Spanish, Quechua and Guarani, with a strong Afro Andean Amazonian influence.

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