BIOGRAPHY
Music is in multi-instrumentalist and composer Cochemea Gastelum’s blood—he comes from a long line of musicians on both sides of his lineage. For over 25 years, Cochemea has built a distinct career as a soloist, section player, and composer/ arranger, collaborating 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.
His forthcoming album on Daptone Records, Vol. 3: Ancestros Futuros, is the third volume in a series that includes 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, he 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. Accompanied by a 9-minute film mixed in Dolby Atmos, this volume also marks Cochemea’s evolution into visual storytelling.
Cochemea’s previous releases have been praised by DJs and critics alike. His Daptone debut, All My Relations, was a family reunion of sorts, uniting spirits, musicians, and melodies across time and place. Leading a nine-piece ensemble, he recombined ancient elements— drums, winds, and voice—into a deeply personal meditation on the interconnection of all things. Vol. 2: Baca Sewa directed this exploration into the archives of family history, mythology, and the cultural imaginary. Pitchfork called All My Relations “equal parts spiritual journey and irrepressible funk.” Mojo awarded the album four stars, noting “its message of harmony and oneness is universal,” while Downbeat described Vol. 2: Baca Sewa as “radiating like a flower from beginning to end.”
Vol. 3: Ancestros Futuros is anchored in the cultural fabric that has nurtured Cochemea from the beginning. A California native of Yaqui ancestry, 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 record of them for years, shaping the language into dream scores as foundations for compositions that connect the conscious and unconscious realm.” One such score appears on the back cover of Ancestros Futuros, reflecting the intuitive and layered nature of his work. This dream- guided approach informs the album’s opening track, Transmisión del Soñar, which serves as a portalbetween dimensions.
The album is also shaped by stories of survival and resistance. The title track, Ancestros Futuros, 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. “I was thinking about survival as a continuum connecting past and future generations,” Cochemea explains, 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 Gato Barbieri, he coaxes his instruments into intimate and expressive realms, bridging ancestral rhythmic traditions with forward- looking vision, creating a signature sound that is both deeply rooted and expansive.
Vol. 3: Ancestros Futuros finds Cochemea building worlds of sound, blending past, present, and future into a ritual offering —an evolving sonic fiction carried across space-time, where memory, survival, and imagination converge.
ASSETS
Download promotional assets HERE.