Nicola Cruz

Nicola Cruz coined the term "Andes Step" to describe what he does: layering field recordings of traditional Andean and Afro-Latin ceremonies over electronic pulses drawn from the natural world. Born in Limoges, France in 1987 to Ecuadorian parents, Cruz moved to Quito at age three and grew up shuttling between France, Ecuador, and Mexico. A drum kit gifted by his parents when he was twelve sparked a fixation with percussion that would shape everything that followed. He started in bands, studied music formally, and initially produced straightforward techno. Then he began digging into something else entirely: rare records of indigenous instrumentation, the bombo and wind flutes of the highland villages surrounding Quito.

His debut album, Prender el Alma, arrived on ZZK Records in October 2015. Cruz self-produced and self-recorded the entire ten-track collection, layering acoustic guitar, charango, and chanted vocals over sparse electronic frameworks. The album featured Ecuadorian singer Huaira on "Equinoccio" and Tanya Sanchez on "Cocha Runa." It was spare, patient music that refused to let the electronics overwhelm the organic source material. Quantic later remixed "Puente Roto" from the record, a nod from one crate-digger to another. The album's success sent Cruz touring globally, and those travels fed directly into his second LP.

Siku, also on ZZK Records, landed in January 2019. Where Prender el Alma was minimalistic and inward-looking, Siku was dense and outward-facing. Cruz had absorbed rhythms and instrumentation from West Africa and East Asia during years on the road, and the album's eleven tracks reflected that expanded palette. Collaborators included Brazilian artist Castello Branco and vocalist Minuk. The record pushed Cruz's "Andean Step" concept beyond the Andes themselves, folding in cross-continental polyrhythms without losing the ceremonial gravity at its core.

Between albums, Cruz stayed prolific across multiple labels. EPs on Multi Culti (Invocacion in 2015, Cantos de Vision in 2017) leaned toward the dancefloor, pairing traditional woodwinds with folktronica and tribal house. The Fuego Nuevo EP on Optimo Music in 2020 explored Afro-Cuban rhythmic forms built around a Roland TR-606. In 2022, he joined fabric's prestigious mix series with fabric presents Nicola Cruz, curating 26 tracks with a heavy emphasis on South American artists and contributing his own collaboration with pianist and cellist Marcela Dias Sindaco.

His third studio album, Kinesia, appeared on Nous'klaer Audio in October 2024. The nine-track record marked a shift toward deep analog synthesis, with Cruz blending studio sessions into meditative, breaks-inflected compositions. Tracks open in unusual time signatures (the album begins in 5/4) and weave chants and subtle percussion through spacious arrangements. Cruz remains based in Quito, vocal about environmental issues like extractivism and mining devastating Ecuador's landscapes, and still guided by the same impulse that started it all: translating ancestral sound into something unmistakably present.