Dreamtime, released on October 13, 2023, is Curawaka's second album and runs ten tracks. It follows the debut, Call of the Wild, and arrives after years of touring that included hundreds of live performances and two world tours. That timing matters. Where the debut established the band's vocal and instrumental vocabulary, Dreamtime shows how that sound developed once the group had spent nearly a decade on the road. It is the album to hear second, and it rewards listeners who already know the first.
Curawaka is an international group formed by artists from Norway, Mexico and Argentina, founded and led by vocalist and songwriter Anna Bariyani. Dreamtime is best understood as the work of a seasoned live band documenting where it has arrived.
The album is vocal-led. Bariyani's voice sits at the front, full and projected rather than whispered, and it moves among the seven languages she sings in: Hatcha Kuin, Yawanawa, Sami, Spanish, Portuguese, English and Norwegian. Expect lines in tongues you may not understand; the music asks you to follow tone, phrasing and rhythm rather than translation.
Beneath the voice are the instruments the band is known for: charango, quena and sikuri flutes, alongside guitars, bass and a range of percussion. The Andean winds and strings are not decorative color here. They carry melodic line, while ceremonial rhythm provides the pulse. The textures lean on melody and rhythm more than on dense chord layering, which gives the music its open, ritual feel. Because the profile does not detail tempo or sequencing, I won't map the album's pacing track by track. Ten tracks give the band room to develop its textures, and the album suits sitting with rather than skimming.
I can't responsibly name individual Dreamtime tracks: the information available to me confirms the album's length and date but not its tracklist, and I would rather not guess. Instead, here is how to find the moments that land.
Listen first for the entrance of the lead voice against the percussion, where the force of the singing meets the ceremonial pulse. Then listen for the flutes, quena and sikuri, and notice when they step forward as the melodic center instead of sitting behind the vocal. Finally, notice any track where the language shifts, since the movement between indigenous languages, Spanish and English is central to the band's identity. Pull the standouts from your own listening, and consult the Spotify page for the official tracklist.
Curawaka does not claim a single spiritual lineage. Its own framing is a cross-cultural practice built on study, collaboration and respect for indigenous traditions. The most clearly documented thread is the band's many years of study with the Wixarika people, whose ceremonial world informs how the group approaches sacred music. The band also engages with shamanism, ceremonies and shamanic drumming, placing it closer to medicine music and sacred chant than to conventional concert folk.
The band calls its sound "sacred world music," a way of connecting the new with the ancient. Dreamtime sits in that space: not bhakti or kirtan in a strict sense, and not ambient, but a devotional, ceremonial strand of contemporary world music. No single teacher or formal line of transmission is named, so it is more accurate to hear the album as the product of sustained relationships with indigenous communities than as the voice of an inherited school. Merchandise sales support the Curawaka Alliance Fund, the band's concrete link to those communities.
Dreamtime lands hardest for listeners who want sound that asks for attention. If you are drawn to voice work, medicine music, sacred chant or ceremonial drumming, or you are moving through a period of seeking, grief, transition or renewal, the album offers a sustained, grounded presence. It suits people who can sit with a long ceremonial vocal line without needing it to resolve quickly.
It is less suited to those wanting high-BPM electronic music or purely ambient background sound. The vocals are projected, not hushed, so they will not fade into the room. Skeptics of sacred or ceremonial vocabulary may feel distanced, and listeners who need English lyrics may find the multilingual writing demanding.
Give the album a full, uninterrupted sitting. Headphones help the layering of flutes, charango and percussion come through, and an evening setting suits the album's weight. Listen alone first, without a screen, and let the languages wash over you before looking up meanings.
If you plan to use it in a practice, audition the tracks beforehand, since the vocal intensity is more forceful than gentle. The recordings are best treated as a companion to ceremonial or voice work rather than a replacement for it. If the album resonates, continue with OLOKUN, or try Dreamtime Remixes (2026) for a club-adjacent reinterpretation. To hear how the instruments and multilingual vocals fill a room, seeing the band live is the most direct route.
