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Today, New York-based multi-instrumentalist and composer Cochemea releases second album single “Omeyocan.”

Cochemea explains, “Omeyocan means “Place of Duality” in Nahuatl. In Aztec cosmology, it’s considered the highest of the heavens—a place outside the temporal world where life and essence originate. Connected to dreams, birth, and the convergence of opposites, it’s linked to emergence and balance. The track mirrors this idea of duality and becoming, starting with a long, winding instrumental melody before shifting into heavy drums and group singing—moving from something inward to something collective.”

Listen to ‘Omeyocan’ here

Cochemea has built a distinct career as a soloist, and composer/arranger, collaborating on stage and in the studio with artists across genres —from his long tenure with Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings to work with Kevin Morby, Run The Jewels, Jon Batiste, Amy Winehouse, The Roots, Archie Shepp, Mark Ronson, and Quincy Jones, among many others.

Vol. 3: Ancestros Futuros, completes a trilogy of albums that include All My Relations (2019) and Vol. 2: Baca Sewa (2021). Across his body of work, Cochemea interweaves the past, present and future, engaging with time as speculative history—one that moves fluidly between memory and possibility.

For Vol. 3: Ancestros Futuros, Cochemea gathered a core group of longtime collaborators—a powerhouse octet of New York City percussionists and members of Daptone’s famed rhythm section. Gabriel Roth (aka Bosco Mann) returned as producer and mixing engineer, capturing the band live to 8-track analog tape.

Vol. 3: Ancestros Futuros is anchored in the cultural fabric that has nurtured Cochemea from the beginning. Cochemea describes a central part of his work as “accessing ancestral memory that comes in different forms— sometimes when you visit a place, sometimes in dreams… it’s in our DNA.”

“For me, it’s about seeking wholeness in these zones of fracture.” Dreams play a vital role in his creative process. “A lot of melodies come to me through dreams,” he shares. “I’ve kept a dream record for years, shaping the language into what I call dream scores.”

The album is also shaped by stories of survival and resistance. A California native of Yaqui ancestry, Cochemea’s title track, “Ancestros Futuros,” which was released earlier this month, draws from a story of a Yaqui midwife who would bury the navels of newborns in the ground so that future generations would rise and reclaim the land. Cochemea explains, “I was thinking about survival as a continuum…connecting past and future generations,” says Cochemea—a theme that echoes throughout his compositions.   

Cochemea’s musical and spiritual synthesis is made possible through his reverence for the horn, and the music and traditions that precede him. His distinct voice as a saxophonist and flutist places him within a lineage of players who honor the past while blending dexterity with invention.

Inspired by heroes like Eddie Harris, Yusef Lateef, Jim Pepper, and Gary Bartz, he coaxes his instruments into intimate and expressive realms, bridging ancestral rhythmic traditions with forward-looking vision, to create a signature sound that is both deeply rooted and expansive.

Patrick Miller