Osotasunean

Published in DEIA, December 10, 2010





Here we are in Christmas season, starting off with Saint Thomas's, Christmas and New Year..... And also another year is the Durango´s Fair of the Basque Books and Music. I’m eager to be there. Lately, I have not been able to attend because of my tight and busy agenda, but this year indeed I need to feel the atmosphere of "tis the season”. Besides this year is very special for me, I will present for the first time to the public the complete Trilogy of the Basque Folk Music. There I will be in the same stand of Hiri Records, among others, the three records: Etxea, Kalea and Herria. The three chapters in which we have summarized the day's run lived during the realization of this project. It thrills me to remember many of the moments lived throughout this trip and seeing that this concluded adventure is reflected in each and every one of the 74 songs that have been recorded. 283 artists of 49 countries, infinity of producers, technicians, photographers, video cameras, managers, people of production, studios. We all have worked to the fullest; achieving a project that I am very proud of for the illusion and all hard effort everyone has put in this trilogy, demonstrating that music does not understand neither frontiers nor languages. All looking for a common goal, sharing our identity there where, somehow, we already have been present. This weekend, Durango can be a perfect starting point for this personal journey, could be with the trilogy or with any other work that there, at the fair, they will expose, which I know will be many and very good ones. I for one am happy to have finished the work. Finished? The project never ends. It finishes the effort, the dedication, but while there are people that listening and living the songs stirs up their inner feelings, I am sure that the project will continue to be alive in the most strangest and fantastic corners of our soul and of the human essence, where each and every of the journeys reside through our wandering around takes us. We’ll see you in Durango!


www.kepajunkera.com

HERRIA

Published in DEIA, Nov. 18, 2010





WHEN after an adventure that I have lived this past year and with the results in your hand to present it in public, you can feel of types of sensations. You always create a kind of profound respect of everyone's opinion towards your work. . One knows all that he has lived, felt, and even what it represents for him all that he has experienced in life, but the great question that always comes to my mind is: How do I make myself express to others and to make them have an image, the closest possible, of the outcome? Herria is one of the most special and intensive albums that I have had opportunity to present. Recorded in New York, Oakland, Paris, Casablanca, Istanbul, Athens, Boise Idaho, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Antonio Texas, Hawaii and Bilbao, this record is like the final attainment of an incredible project. In this occasion I have counted with the help, among others, of Eleftheria Arvanitaki, the voices of Chelle's and Friends, the quintet of Dave Douglas, the incredible All Nations Singers, the people of the Boise´s Choir, NOKA, Amuma Says No, the Texan music and so on, more then 130 artists of 28 countries or writers like Bernardo Atxaga and my friend Xabier Amuriza. A whole challenge of diaries, journeys, airports, taxis, education, schedules etc. Remembering the previous ones Etxea and Kalea, Herria has supposed a new turn around focus, something like curling the curl just a little more of the efforts and the complicities of it all. I do not exaggerate if I say that I am very proud of the outcome. It is not a perfect work but definitely I have counted on great collaborators and the perfect team. Result: 23 songs in which we have overturned to the last straw of what we have inside, literally emptiness, in a job that I hope will produce oceans of sensations in all those who decide to undertake this journey, around the world, just like our ancestors carried out in search of a better life. Kaixo denori, hona hemen Herria!


www.kepajunkera.com