“Caminos closes the album, but in reality it opened it,” says Jorge Coulon when referring to the song that gives title to Inti Illimani’s new album. Indeed, it is the last song in the repertoire, but it was the first one the group worked on in their rehearsal room in La Reina. In fact, they took an idea that had been circulating and developed it. “In the previous album, there was a song called Chile is a path, it started a bit from there – recalls Coulon -. Chile is a path, but well, all are paths, trajectories.”
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The idea of celebrating that path, with music, crossed into the new work of the famous group, recorded over three weeks at the Santuario Sónico studio and available from this week on digital platforms. “Walk, walk, without looking back”, they sing in that song that served as their creative beacon. A path that revisits places of memory, offers moments of reflection, and leads towards the celebration of the group’s 60 years of life, completed by César Jara, David Azán, Daniel Cantillana, Christian “Búho” González, Efrén Viera, Juan Flores Luza, and Camilo Lema. “It is the path to 60 years, it is a path in the sense that the group has a very long way ahead, even though we have this anniversary that sounds very grandiose,” adds Marcelo Coulon.
Despite the imprint of the Coulon brothers, as the historical names of the group, they actually work as a collective when it comes to working. “This is a very collective album, like most of Inti Illimani’s albums – explains Jorge Coulon -. There has been a lot of intervention, a lot of collaboration in the arrangements, even in the lyrics, always looking for words or sometimes phrases that made more sense in another way.”
That collaboration is what allowed them to trace the album’s sound universe, where the exploration of Latin American music led them to corners of the Peruvian waltz, cumbia, among others. In some way, summarizing the group’s interests. “Once we had the 10 songs, we realized that we were not missing any theme to touch on, when you outline an album you see what might be missing – details Marcelo Coulon -. We realized that we were treading on very much our own ground, doing some things that are not the most typical of Inti Illimani, looking for a certain sound or certain rhythms that little by little are becoming part of our repertoire.”
Above all, Inti does not abandon its interest in expressing a reflection. A deeply humanistic view opens the album with El Fuego de la Memoria, written by Daniel Cantillana and with music by David Azán, referencing hope in poetic key. “Like an underground fire that ignites in its rebirth/from the very roots to the top of the Tepual/The fire of memory that will not stop burning/Old light that will announce the dawn,” sings the group with their characteristic vocal arrangements. The lyrics immediately triggered a connection for Jorge Coulon. “I have a friend who is a Turkish Sufi philosopher with whom I have had a friendship for several years, and the text immediately evoked, more than Sufism, Sufism is a fire of memory, Zoroastrianism, the cradle of monotheistic religions, where of course, the symbol or ritual was to keep a fire. And that makes a lot of sense with the current times. Great mysticism has no age.”
Inti also expands towards dance-oriented music, in the lively cumbia Todo en ti, whose videoclip starred actors Katty Kowaleczko and Daniel Alcaíno. A delicate work, which in turn refers to an idea the group has regarding the unavoidable genre at university parties and fairs. A view they have already expressed in songs like Sobre tu playa. “We have a position on this – emphasizes Jorge Coulon -. Chilean dieciochera cumbia is a national genre, but somehow it looks at cumbia from the point of view of fun, of festivity. But the impression we have always had knowing Colombian music as we have known it for so many years, is that there is an elegance in Colombian cumbia that somehow is lost in this southern cumbia. It’s like the braids of fun come undone and a fineness and elegance that cumbia has is lost. The dance of cumbia is super elegant.”
In line with Inti’s history, the album contains a timely reflection. Written in lyrics and music by David Azán, La Verdad no Obedece, presents a view that could refer to Chile as well as other parts of the world. “They say homeland hiding the sword, they say peace invoking the law/But wheat does not grow in the shade and my people bow to your king,” says the lyrics, built with images of clear poetic vocation. “It is a song that had to be present in one way or another, but in that lane of expression”, says Marcelo Coulon. For his part, Jorge Coulon was immediately convinced. “I received it with great joy, as if something like that was needed – he comments -. We have been drifting towards a kind of general timidity, not stepping on eggshells, not stepping on toes, but in that drift the fences have also been moved a lot. I see it a lot like sailing; sometimes you have to lean a lot to one side, because otherwise the sailboat will tip over to the other.”
There is also room to pay tribute to an old friend of the group, the late Patricio Manns. In his memory, Daniel Cantillana wrote La Copa Alzada, a song with arpeggiated guitar that seems to profile the singer-songwriter and celebrate him with a toast to eternity. “I am not the one to write you a tribute/And the truth is I owe you so much and more/I always saw your pages of landscapes, of a just world that today we have to imagine,” says the lyrics. And to emphasize the surprise, Manns himself is heard reciting an excerpt from Sonata Solidaria, a piece composed for the Cuban film, Cantata de Chile, by Humberto Solás. “We had that recording which we have used on more than one occasion in concerts”, points out Jorge Coulon. “The idea is that nothing of Patricio Manns is lost.”
Manns also floats in another moment of the album. Originally, La Tramontana, was a text by the singer-songwriter that was never recorded. Determined to recover it, David Azán, who was Manns’ guitarist for 10 years, tried to reconstruct it from his memories. And there a coincidence happened. The Italian singer-songwriter Giulio Wilson, who recorded the album Agua with Inti in 2023, took to Europe a copy of Cantología, the book that gathers all the verse work of the man from Arriba en la Cordillera. “And I think Pato intervened from somewhere, because Giulio told us ‘this song drives me crazy’ – recalls Jorge Coulon -. And he sent us a music idea. And it turns out that the music he sent us had a lot to do with what David remembered.” There it fit perfectly.
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Among the grooves of Caminos, the voice of another guest is heard; the precursor of Chilean trap, Pablo Chill-E sounds in Abya Yala. A song that refers to the ancient name with which some indigenous peoples called the American continent. It is a composition with the vocation of an anthem, which with its worked vocal harmonies could be related to other Inti songs, like Simón Bolívar or América novia mía. The meeting between two musical universes, at first very different, was born from a meeting. “Last year Marcelo and I did a work at the Shishigang cultural center, called Paya y batalla, combining improvisation in décima with rap battles. It was an extraordinary experience, we learned a lot. So from that side we had contact,” explains Jorge Coulon. The trap artist was approached with the idea, went to the studio, listened to the song, and then sent his part. “We have tried to maintain contact which has not always been easy, because prejudices work both ways, let’s say. But the good disposition he showed immediately speaks very well of the possibility of not creating uncommunicative worlds,” adds the musician.
-How have you seen the emergence of young people who cultivate interest in Latin American music? In some way, following what you have done, or people like Victor Jara…
Jorge Coulon: Look, in general we have quite a bit of contact with youth, partly through our activity with the school [Ed: Sol del Illimani] there in La Florida, but also because many kids come to talk to us. Well, we have lived enough to know that this story repeats cyclically, there are things that come back, things one gets saturated with, and then the next generation takes up again. We ourselves have lived it that way, let’s say. So I think there is a need for identity coming, especially to know from where we talk to the world. Because if not, and I will quote Albert Camus, the sense of not belonging, the sense of what he called “de paysament,” of being from nowhere, is tremendously painful, especially for young people, who are always looking for where they come from. So I think an interesting generation is coming in that sense, it has never been interrupted. And now, for example, there is this Argentine guy, Milo J, who has a profile, a search … did I listen to his album? Yes, I loved it.
Marcelo Coulon: We grew up with people like Víctor, people who helped us stand on stage. So it is like our duty that those links never break between artists and we have to be very connected because that way we all grow.
-At the beginning you talked about this idea of the path, for the album. And one sees the Rolling Stones who just released an album, McCartney, that is, people around 80 years old. You, who are approaching that age, have you wondered if that path will continue or if you will put an end to it?
JC: I will turn 80 next year, so it doesn’t seem so far away, let’s say (laughs). I think one doesn’t project like that, I mean, if you asked me 20 years ago I would have said no, I don’t imagine myself at 80. But we have continued, the group has continued with extraordinary vitality. And yes, Marcelo and I have talked more than once, at some point this will end, either by our own will or divine will. But it is a question that must be asked only at the moment. Personally, there are things that are harder for me to do now, but compared to what I imagined reaching 80 years old was, I feel super good.
MC: I am quite younger than him! Haha (laughs) The nice thing is that we have talked about this very seriously in the group, also with his stature, because it is a topic that is good to talk about. If for some reason, wanted or unwanted, it happens, the question is more for the young people: do they want to continue? Because none of the old ones will be there anymore. And the answer is an absolute yes because there is a lot of desire to do things, a lot of desire. The difficult thing would be if we were already living off past glories, doing the same repertoire always without new creation, that is when we should all hang up our boots. But this is an album made here, in this room you see, everything came out, from the first note to the last of the lyrics. With that strength, with that desire to do, there is Inti Illimani for a long time, whether we are here or not. That is decided on the path.
Meanwhile, Caminos will be available in CD, vinyl, and digital platforms. The group is also preparing to officially launch it with a presentation at the Teatro Caupolicán, next Friday, August 7. That will be the starting point of a national tour, in which the group will perform in Coquimbo, Calama, Arica, Iquique, Rancagua, Buin, Osorno, Puerto Varas, Temuco, Los Ángeles, Valdivia, Punta Arenas, Valparaíso, Chillán, and Concepción, to close in December with shows at the Nescafé de las Artes. “We want to show them the whole album and hopefully they like it, as we liked it – says Marcelo Coulon -. The doors are more than open for this good idea that is Inti Illimani to last a long time.”
