TANGER

Published by DEIA, June 30, 2011



Seated in my chair taking notes over my small sensations that comes to my mind in my notebook remembering the first time that I stepped on Moroccan lands, our destiny? The city of Tangier, to attend the Tarab Tangier, international festivity of folk music in which we were invited to share our music with groups of India, Iran, Portugal and Bulgaria.

Tangier is a city in the northern part of Morocco situated at the coasts of the Strait of Gibraltar, and example of a different neighbor’s culture. The Festivity, in his third edition and under the motto Crossroads, took place the 22nd till the 26th of June, in which we performed Saturday the 25th. It’s time to go out on stage and we perform in a privileged surrounding, a Portuguese’s fortress of the XVIIth century on the dock. I was delighted by the spirit of this soul festivity as a distinguish link of artistic and cultural international interchange level. Coincidences of life, we had just released our new project Ultramarinos & Coloniales and, all of a sudden, I see myself walking by those incredible Medinas, (The Medinas are the most exciting places of most of the Moroccan cities. In them are concentrated a great commercial, cultural and free activity of the population) alleys as if fraught mazes of commerces and stands, with unique colors, radiating life. Exclusives corners that is necessary to search for to discover part of this culture and a kind of so odd life. Even in the same festivity they offered us their typical foods with lots of spice, different and very suggestive flavors that are also a part of the surroundings and the culture of a fascinating country. As I understand it I think that is how a festival should be, representing an interchange with the people from out of town, carrying out a true cultural encounter across-the-board.


After the presentation, straight off the street at the old quarter of Bilbao, Ultramarinos & Colonial begins his way walking through the different stages that we will wander around for the next few months. Now it is our turn, let’s pull on stage the rhythms, melodies and all the emotions that we are capable to create: "these are our products". And I insure you that the people of Tangier…Have shopped!!!

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ULTRAMARINOS & COLONIALES

Published by DEIA, June 23, 2011



Inerasable memories of unmistakable aromas and unique characters that they become part of an "external" family that they accompanied the happy and unconscious step of my childhood.

The grocery stores have marked that different view of the close; daily commerce's and above all family style that today in day, for several motives, it´s almost hard to even find one.

Taking a walk by the 7 streets I delved into that memory and I came up with the idea of dedicating them this new record, because at the bottom I have tried to materialize, thanks to music, the same sensations that one experiences when he enters an establishment of that nature, discovering always new details and different aromas, but on a known base.

In this project I have counted only on the collaboration of the musicians of my band, and the fact is that it has been on purpose, because I wanted to get that special sonority that in the course of the years has accompanied me in my concerts, mixed with my compositions where, almost without meaning to, they have kept on surfacing quantity of feelings and own experiences lived in these few years. I want to thank to all and every one of the people that have helped to “wrap up” this dream in that brown paper for the effort and the support and, mainly, to José Luís Canal, for his attitude and the dedicated affection while we traveled side by side to far away places of the soul to bring part of rhythms and the melodies that the album holds.


The cycles follow and the stories repeat itself, and these commerce will return to reappear. I am sure, because I believe that we live in a moment where we begin to appraise and needing more of the real than the superfluous or the accessory for very nice, perfect and practical that they can sell it. Each day we agreed and we look intensely for the heart of the essence, escaping of the right things but insipid, of the perfect but empty.

With freedom and the confidence of what it is offered. Insurance of quality and the affection put in this elaboration and presentation: ULTRAMARINOS & COLONIALES (GROCERY & COLONIAL STORE), because always there are music fluttering in the memories

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AHOTS MUGAK

Published by DEIA, June 16, 2011






AN anniversary is something that does not have less relevance because of its repetitive, it depends the same one belonging to the nature of the event that stands out.

Next Saturday, June 18, will have place in the Church of San Juan Bautista Saint of Leioa a very special concert that will begin the 10th year celebration of Leioa Kantika Korala, a commemoration that reflects the effort of many people making won choral music, albums and with a great deal, very much, talent. At 8:30 p.m., and in addition to Kantika, also will participate in the same act, the juvenile chorus of feminine voices The Kantoria and San Abesbatza, of mixed voices, all belonging to the Municipal Conservatory´s Choral School of Leioa, inaugurating three compositions entrusted and written specially for that day by Xabier Sarasola, Josu Elberdin and Javier Busto.

I have always sought to intertwine the sound of the different instruments among themselves. The sum of their personalities is a magical combination. The voice is the most complex and perfect instrument God forbid existed and the sound that it is capable to express has gotten to excite us during thousands of years that we all have brought ourselves near to that so complex and demanding world. For some time now I have been collaborating with Leioa Kantika Korala, trying to investigate, to discover and to create next to them, a whole world of shared sonorities, converting this collaboration in a fascinating adventure and a true pleasure.

In future dates Leioa Kantika Korala will share their music through the Catalan lands, the French Provence and Sunday, July 24 in Zornotza Amorebieta, next to the great Xabier Amuriza and ourselves, that we will present, one more time, the spectacle Beti Bizi, with a fusion of voices, ancient Biscayan ballads, melodies of dance and a lot of illusion.

With the most ancient, the voice, you write down new full spaces of shades, colors and textures that I am absolutely delighted by... ZORIONAK eta mila esker!!! (Congratulations and Thank you!!!)


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GORRITI

Published by DEIA, June 9, 2011





I remember a very special visit to one of the most authentic people that I know.
It was cool outside. It was autumn, a luminous day of those but humid at the same time, the ones that I like, with the aroma of the wooden smoke coming out from the chimney. The Malloak in front, as if of a giant-sized painting in three dimensions we talked about and at the front door of his home, its owner, Juan Gorriti, sculptor, painter and a thousand things more, but above all owner of his own destiny like few I have known.
I greet him with a strong hug and after a long and amusing chat he invites me in to taste the beans his wife has prepared. Everything next to Gorriti tastes different; he has the pleasure of what's sincere. A slug of wine, a couple of fried eggs and one already forgets about the problems of the city, hastes, paperwork...
Gorriti is a man with a special magic, with the wisdom of a farm man and the most creative artists' talent. A human being that, unlike other ones, expresses what he feels bluntly, in a natural way. Always it is said that artists receive infinity of influences and I believe that in the case of Gorriti those influences are mutual because anyone that has talked with him or has seen his artworks realizes that inspires life in all that he touches and converts the common, the normal in something with proper and different personality.
I am fascinated with his vision of what surrounds him: “Our villages and farmhouses, mountains, forests, all that surrounds us are big art galleries... ” Their art, their talent, are an accurate reflection of their philosophy of life, without internal wars obscuring their existing, letting oneself get carried away by what is born inside, without filters. And, curiously, that seems the less risky for us all, I believe is what really satisfies him, turning his gaze into something clean and in peace.
All that wraps him up is susceptible to be a part of his art although, particularly, I am delighted with what one is capable of achieving with wood, creating, like Mother Nature, transforming.

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ITSUMEN?

Published by Deia, June 2, 2011



A crosswalk, stoplight for pedestrians and a blind person with a guide dog arrives at my side. Green! We rapidly cross over; the blind person keeps reading each pull and each turn of the strap of the dog. I suppose that at this point his arm has become another sense more that completes and balance the visual scarcity.

Disabled, handicapped... are words whose use I disagree upon, most of all, for what it is associates to. Is one disabled because he that cannot run the 100 meters in 11 seconds? Or is it the one that does not know about music? Or are we handicapped the ones who cannot see through our hands? Strange definitions

Touching Images is an exposition of photographs in relief of known celebrities, divided in two halls; The Ondare Hall, at María Díaz of Haro St. and the BBK Hall, at the Gran Vía, both in Bilbao, and will be exposed till the 30th of June. The artificer of all this is the photographer Juan Torre, that thought that it would be interesting to be able to bring closer a photographic exposition to the blind people by means of reliefs That will allow them to discover all the details of the image but without using the sense of sight, just the touch. No sooner said than done, Juan began to call on his models, which I am included among them, taking my snapshots. He contacted the company Estudios Durero who worked on creating the necessary relief to each photograph in order to achieve the depths, textures and shapes.

What an incredible experience, closing one's eyes and facing the image only with your fingers! It’s so strange to see with your hands, to examine by touch each wrinkle or each relief of the photo.

I imagine that using the sense of touch, learning from zero will be something like when one discovers the different concepts that encloses the music and begins to listen instead of hearing, one step that requires effort and, most of all, unlearning what was learned until then.

Exciting how our brain, sometimes, we have to format part of the information to install new concepts. Forgetting what has been learned is necessary, sometimes, to learn the unknown.


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PAGASARRI

Published by DEIA, May 26, 2011




Returning from Madrid from a collaboration, several meetings and the Music Award’s Event still in my mind. Just before coming to Bilbo I notice the slopes of Pagasarri and I discover the leafiness and the coloring of a spring in its complete effervescence. Passed a few days I decide to take a stroll around there.

The mountain Pagasarri belongs to Ganekogorta's mountain mass that, with its 1,000 meters of height, which is a natural border between the territories of Bizkaia and Araba. In the trajectory I can clearly see that the Paga is alive and vitality becoming the lungs of such a frantic city like Bilbao. In an article they commented that this area lodges surprisingly a rich fauna that, without a doubt, revalue’s the surroundings with residents like the aesculapius snake, the peregrine falcon or the sparrow hawk among others. With a burning sun on top I continue my walk throw the intense green grasslands and seeing some more and more privileged sights thinking about how difficult it is to me to believe that animal species so savage may inhabit a place so near to a dense urban nucleus like Bilbao than it seems that it would have to have lost his ecological value, as if the same went by human patterns.

Nature does not circumscribe only to distant and paradisiacal places. Animal and vegetal species, that now seem ecological treasures for us, thousand years ago it did not populate our lands exemplifying that nature is somewhat lively, changing, that evolves and develops itself for parameters, I would even say, we are unaware of in great measure. Before sparrow hawks, falcons, etc were species that we only could see in books or visiting very distant and agrestal areas. Today, even in surroundings so humanized like the Pagasarri, we can enjoy them.




Let's not get carried away always of pessimistic and alarming messages, true it is that not all is good but it is not less true that we achieve bigger things. I believe that we have to learn from the animals, because only they get carried away by their instinct, for what they need and what they are. And they always CORRECT. Maybe someday even we will learn, right?

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SILBO

Published in DEIA, May 19, 2011







It’s has been pondering in my head for quite awhile about the different adaptations that throughout history of the many animal species as in the plant world have carried out. And the most mind-blowing of them is the role that the planet and its circumstances play as like architect of the molding of each and everyone and one of them in terms of the needs of the individual.

Some days ago I visited the city of The Lagoon, in Tenerife, (The Canary Islands) to collaborate with my friend Rogelio Botanz in his recording of a CD-DVD, in which he glimpsed back at his career surrounded by different friends. Rogelio was born in Legazpi a small town in Guipuzcoa, but leaving to do the military service in Tenerife and, ever since, he lives there, dedicated to teaching in addition to the music. So much so that Rogelio has become an absolute specialist in island sonorities in which I would personally highlight one that is of the "Silbo Gomero".

Aside from having been declared Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and of being an expression of the cultural folkways of The Gomera, the "Silbo" (Whistling) is one of the most incredible adaptations carried out by the man. It consists in using a complex variety of whistles and to make with it a means of communication, which makes them to be understood for people that are far away from others. As well said by my friend Rogelio, expert in this area about the "Silbo", it is not a language in itself, but a substitutive way and, of course, the correct reflection of the capacity of the human being’s overcoming.

This way of communication, not only demands a great power when whistling, but also a control of its technique cause, for the wealth of its vocabulary, the acoustic resources of the oral cavity are used to its fullest. Although before the "Silbo" was showed from teacher to pupil today and thanks to the effort of a great many people they give Silbo's classes in all the schools of the island, achieving its use, knowledge and survival between the new generations. A huge treasure.

We are a result of what we need and the sum of what we have turns into a reflection of what we can become to be.


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