Nicola Cruz

Nicola Cruz

Nicola Cruz is an Ecuadorian electronic music producer from Limoges, Ecuador. Born in 1987, he works with electronic music shaped by interest in ancestral Latin American cosmology, especially Andean and African lineages within South American identity.

Style and themes

His music focuses on living roots, rituals, rhythms, oral traditions, instruments and the energy they carry. He treats consciousness and spirituality as central ideas, and his work connects those ideas to music. The result combines electronic and organic sounds, with a strong sense of duality between local and global, past and present.

Releases and collaborations

His first record, Prender el Alma (2015), explores consciousness and spirituality in relation to music. Siku continues that approach while widening his references to new stories and other cultures. The title refers to the siku, an Andean wind instrument made of two complementary parts, the arca and the ira, and associated with duality and indigenous world views.

Siku, released on ZZK Records, brings together instruments with symbolic and spiritual meanings, including the sitar, siku and balafon, alongside hints of electronica. It also draws on samba, cumbia, and rhythms of African, Andean and Hindu origin.

Collaborative work

Collaboration is central to the album process. Siku is made across different cities and involves several musicians. “Criançada” is recorded with Brazilian singer and poet Castello Branco. “Voz de las Montañas” features the Minük duo. “Esu Enia” includes African balafon touches from Marcio Pinto, a Portuguese musician Cruz meets in Lisbon. Mauricio Vicencio and his sons Julio and Pablo, of Ecuadorian origin and members of the Altiplano group, also collaborate on tracks on the album.