A 2022 record-digging trip through Bogotá gave Venezuelan-born guitarist Manuel Rivas the grounding for Niña Volcán. He spent time inside the city’s cumbia scene, working through its history from the coastal originals to the experimental wave that Meridian Brothers, Frente Cumbiero and Romperayo had been driving out of Bogotá for two decades.

Back in Toronto, he put the band together with saxophonist Adlar Gross and bassist Pāvils Hawkins, and when it came to recording their Ontario Arts Council-funded debut, Macondo, he went straight back to that scene for the key personnel: Pedro Ojeda, the Bogotá percussionist at the centre of Romperayo and Frente Cumbiero, on drums, and Eblis Álvarez of Meridian Brothers on the mix.

“Cumbia del Destello”, the second track on the album named after García Márquez’s fictional Colombian town, has trumpeter Morgan Gardner alongside Gross in the horn section, the horns trading lines over that locked 4/4 cumbia groove. Ojeda drives the rhythm while Álvarez shapes the sound at the desk. Recorded at Half Moon Audio in Toronto, and mastered by Noah Mintz, the album came out in November 2025.

Stream “Cumbia del Destello” HERE and get your copy of Macondo following THIS LINK