While already Chilean Grammy winners, this year, MAWIZA continued their rise as a guiding force for indigenous metal. Behind their critically-acclaimed new album “ÜL”, the modern day Mapuche warriors appeared on magazine covers, took the stage at major summer festivals and brought home a LIT Music Award.

Today, MAWIZA are capping off 2025 by releasing a special performance from Gojira frontman Joe Duplantier’s Silver Cord Studio. Introduced by ceremonial Mapuche chanting, this session features the thunderous stomp of “Wingkawnoam”, the towering “Mamüll Reke”, earthshaking lament “Ti Inan Paw-Pawkan” and other defiant anthems from ÜL. Fittingly, the band closed their Silver Cord session with a rousing cover of GOJIRA’s “Amazonia”.      

“I love MAWIZA! For their music, for who they are as individuals and for what they stand for”, Joe Duplantier says. “They represent and honor their powerful Mapuche heritage, amplifying its relevant message of connection with our roots and the universe as a whole. And they do so with determination and in the most modern way, with heavy riffs and an openness to new ideas and to the world. A conversation between past, present and future. Don’t give up the fight!”  

“In the winter season of 2024, MAWIZA arrived at Silver Chord Studio in New York, right in the middle of the Northern summer. We came answering an invitation from Joe Duplantier”, recalls MAWIZA’s vocalist and guitarist Awka. “We traveled light, almost with nothing, the way bands from the bottom usually move. By trusting more in our newen than in any objects, we knew that if the path was true, the music would find its own tools. And that’s exactly what happened. Joe welcomed us with a generosity that still moves us, a kind of care for guests that feels very close to what we are taught since childhood in our nation. He didn’t hesitate to lend us his own instruments so we could shape the noise we carry inside”. 

“Silvercord felt like a crack in reality for us”, Awka continues, “metal breathing from the walls, the city howling outside, and us walking with the shadow of our ancestors over a faraway land. The north of Abya Yala has ancient guardians; we felt them watching, testing us, opening the way only because we arrived with respect and memory. 

“We thank Joe for his honest and powerful hospitality, along with his family for receiving us with warmth from their hearts. We also thank Jamie for his impeccable work and all the people at Silver Cord. Finally, we thank the spirits of that distant mapu for letting us create without losing the pulse of who were are. We returned to our territory marked by a dark echo, a spiritual weight that is born only when the energy of nature and the brotherhood of metal meet in distant lands”.