Kepa Junkera

Published in DEIA on July 15, 2010

Kepa´s picture by the fantastic photographer Marie-José Durquet

ALL people should keep a special memory to those persons who developed unknown facets, in areas such as creativity, knowledge, society … We all know that with the type of life that we lead, mostly we rely more on the immediacy of our existence.  What only exists is what takes place now. This requires of us to always stay alert to any changes occurring around us, but at the same time it allows us to drop into oblivion things that have been the result of the effort and the devotion of many people who have dedicated their lives to enrich, in many ways, our existence. A few days ago I read an article in this newspaper, dedicated to the work being done by the José Miguel de Barandiaran´s Foundation and the inauguration of the Barandiaran´s museum in the town of Ataun. Let’s take, for example, On Joxe Miel. Born in 1889 and was ordained priest in 1914. In 1916 he found several dolmens in the mountains of Aralar and from then on until 1991, date of death, On Joxe Miel has conducted an incredible job on our culture, our past history and, above all, our essence as a country. How many of our kids know this? How many of us know of his work, and the magnitude of it? And like him, how many others do we know more? We have the obligation to collect and make available to all of us, old and young, what we inherited from characters as fascinating as Aita Barandiaran and so many others. We can not afford to lose these incredible messages by the apathy and disinterest which is growing in many areas of our society. I would like to dedicate this column to all the people, whether in foundations, museums, etc.., worked hard and struggled so that our memory does not blur in the mists of time and much of that knowledge created, redeemed and investigated by these true heroes, will not be forgotten and we, all of us and those to come, enjoy and make use of this treasure.

www.kepajunkera.com

Share on Facebook

BETI BIZI is Kepa Junkera´s new project accompanied by Xabier Amuriza and the female voices of the choir KANTIKA.

On Monday an interview was recorded for the cultural program of the Public Basque Television (EiTB) “EiTB Kultura” with Kepa Junkera and Xabier Amuriza, writer / bertsolari (improviser of oral verses) explaining all the details of this new album BETI BIZI.

Also in the interview we could count on the participation of the girls from the choir “LEIOA KANTIKA KORALA” who joined in with the accordion music of Kepa Junkera and the voice of Xabier Amuriza interpreting several songs of the album.

The program was recorded in a unique setting such as the Nature Interpretation Center Tower Madariaga located in one of the most privileged spots of the natural park of Urdaiba, in Busturia.

It is believed that the interview will be released on the 17^th of August in ETB 2, in Spanish while the 19^th of August it will be broadcasted in ETB 1 in Euskera, the basque language.

www.kepajunkera.com

Share on Facebook

Published in DEIA on July 8, 2010

Photography by Lluis Serrat

Those who know me know that I like the contrasts and intenseemotions. This past year I lived incredible experiences. It has been a period of unique experiences that, luckily, I could share with my family. Throughout our lives, the stages follow one another and the inexorable passage of time marks, in a dictatorial manner, the beginning and the end of them. Completed, in part, my experience outside of Euskadi and coming back home, to the beginning of my dates of concerts, unmissed events that I already started to miss accompanied by the musicians of my band. After 2,400 miles in three days, two concerts and many moments of laughter, reflection and complicity, we’re almost there. I’m about to glimpse the familiar green sign that says Bizkaia announcing that we are back home. One of those weekends that make you addicted.  We had on Friday night, a concert in Girona, Catalonia and Saturday in the town Miajadas of Caceres. Two different places, far away from each other but where I could see how music, my band members and the contact live with the public are ingredients whose absence you can hardly get tired of.  It´s difficult to explain how it feels when I listen to my music with the accompaniment of my players, the keyboards, txalaparta, bass, drums, alboka, percussion … all bringing together the rhythms and melodies to many unknown places. It’s was incredible to play my songs again with my band that makes it great that one has humility done in composing. Fascinating was to be engage with this drug of giving live concert. A rather curious composition’s place, sounds and silences that has a strange bipolarity: takes you closer to the sublime and nails you to the earth to find out that many times in the bare things, as simple, is the true essence of what is wanted. The music shared, hotels, roads, lights, watts, the sweat, the public, nerves, the night and, of course, the moon … Will you join us? You’re all invited.

www.kepajunkera.com

Share on Facebook

Published on July 1, 2010 by DEIA

Innovate and create something new, propose options, so far unknown, is something that is becoming increasingly hard. There is on one hand a simple calculation of probability and the other partly because our sense of wonder is narrowing a bit. Today, thanks to new technologies, our access to information is almost constant and in this globalized world we call that with one click of our mouse can travel virtually from one continent to another; it seems that nothing is going to draw attention. A few years ago the writer and bertsolari (Basque improviser singer) Xabier Amuriza had compiled a series of old Biscay songs among those that had carried out a selection and released an album that had a wide acceptance. But he still had remained material for another recording project and asked me if I was interested in working. Right away I said yes and began to imagine and intuit different ways to carry out this project. Of course, if I start to think about what I first imagined this album would be and it what it has finally become, the truth is that I am gobsmacked. Bizi Beti is the result of merging between the old Biscayan’s ballads, the voices of Leioa Kantika Korala completing the final product with the merge of the same with electronic music, resulting in a new recording project with a different proposal, brave and without complex. But getting here is essential to have the talent and dedication of a large team of people. I want to thank a very special way to Jose Luis Canal by schedules and arrangements he has been carried out, Basilio Astulez, Leioa Kantika Korala, Xabier Sarasola for that very special vision he has contributed to this album, and most particularly to Xabier Amuriza, great supporter of this project and I appreciate his generosity in sharing it with me. And finally each and every one of those who have taken part in this record, because to me all the notes are equally important, both the rhythm just as the melody.

www.kepajunkera.com

Share on Facebook

Published by Dani Chicano on July 6, 2010: www.avui.elpunt.cat
Photograph by Lluis Serrat

After the concert on Friday night on the steps of Girona´s Cathedral, which Kepa Junkera offered, talking to with Miquel Basin, what is that you always enrich the conversation, a scholar in the field of music, and especially the has been called world music, in which in the traditional Catalan music that would be extremely well a figure that was the equivalent to Kepa Junkera in traditional Basque music. Junkera has achieved, among other things, which the trikitixa, Basque diatonic accordion linked to popular music and with a liberating function ceases to be a reviled instrument, frowned upon even by religious and social issues, usually related to rural and little academic places. The trikitilari from Rekalde understood that to maintain the tradition it needs to evolve, it must be renewed by applying a creative spirit. Shield against any alteration, to repeat over and above what can only be reliably lead to the disappearance or the relegation to the status of anthropological oddity. Junkera has recovered the trikitixa, but also the traditional Basque folk music and has adapted to the times, repeating this operation with the txalaparta and alboka, traditional Basque percussion and wind instruments, respectively, which together with the sound of trikitixa are the hallmark of Kepa Junkera and his group of excellent musicians. In Catalonia there are commendable efforts, such as Jordi Molina with the tenor, Artur Blasco (El Pont d’Arcalís), also accordionist with a long history and a lot of work of recovery behind his back, but none of the size, versatility and the international projection of Kepa Junkera, comparable to what has been done with the Galician gaita by Carlos Nunez, for instance. Just as Núñez and gaita (bagpipes), Junkera breathe the same rhythm as his instrument, which has an absolute dominance, spectacular, which allows him to play at a high speed without losing a single note, with vivid clarity. The symbiosis, perfect, allows to modular the speech to Kepa Junkera´s convenience, qualify it, to excite the public, who finished surrendered to him.

At the concert in Girona, Junkera, was accompanied by Iñigo Olazabal (Txalaparta, albota and percussions), Argibel Euba (txalaparta and percussions), Roberto Caballero (bass), José Luis Canal (piano) and José Ángel Telleria (drums). The majority of the songs played were from his album HIRI (2006)- Hiri, Kokkola, Buenos Aires, Reno, Agadir, Tatihou, Ataun and Napoli- in which Junkera, being an interpreter and composer, he was inspired by many cities of the world.  The rest of the themes are from his album Bilbao 00:00 – (Bok Espok, Gaztelugatxeko) Maren -(Kaixarranka, Peliqueiroak terranovan) and Leon Orroeak (Zirkinipez)

Share on Facebook

A new step forward of the trikitixa

Amuriza, Leioa Kantika Junkera Koral and joining tradition and modernity in assigning “surprising”

Published by Ander Egiluz Beramendi for DEIA on July 4, 2010

Betibizi. Immortelle. It is the flower that is placed on the lapel of the dancers, and is the title of the new album with the signature of  Xabier Amuriza, Leioa Kantika Koral, along with the inexhaustible Kepa Junkera. “The title has a double meaning,” says the bertsolari of Etxano-“On one side is a direct reference to the flower of the dancers, a tribute to them all, and secondly the demand for the dance, of its vitality and eternity”.

The album, published by Hiri Records, has great coral presence, also having the  trikitixa of Junkera and with the foundations on ancient ballad Biscayan´songs and classical melodies of dance that Amuriza has collected and sorted. But it does not sound as expected. The CD, shocks you, a lot. “People may be surprised,” the musician of Rekalde sincerely says. “It’s an album to enjoy listening to in hi-fi system”. And if anything characterizes the large group that has join together in this project- so many names that always one is always left behind, is the obsession for a work well done. “I’ve been very careful with this recording because I know how Xabier works and the time he has spent on its and I wanted to be at the height of the circumstances,” says the trikitilari.

With a copy in his hand, Amuriza laughs from the little that the CD holds in comparison with the books in which, ten years ago, recovered the verses. “So much work and so little presence,” jokes the two of them, with a very good reason: the first steps of the project were taken “almost nine years ago!”, exclaims Junkera.

The label market situation also is not at all buoyant and explains the musician, “it will become increasingly more difficult to make records like this, many years of work.” But creativity can not stop on breaking down barriers.

Innovate

Beyond the triki and tambourine

What is most striking in the first electronic sounds heard that the artist used for this. The album is the second part of a project that Amriza began more than a decade, with the recording Bizkaiko kopla zaharrak, in which Tapia ta Leturia participated. On that occasion the result was more classic, “The Sound of lifelong triki with melodies and lyrics together forever,” says Xavier. But for this second part I wanted to change the recording -there fits the idea of mixing dance tunes with other types of ballads-, and who became his traveling companion, Kepa Junkera, also soughing  new atmospheres. “It has always caught my attention to play differently,” honestly speaking Junkera. “Not always playing the triki with the tambourine.

The “hunger and appetite” got together, two natural born innovators, ground-breakers, each in his personal field.  Xabier revolutionized improvisation by showing that it was not a privilege of gifted persons and Kepa did the same to bring trikitixa to dispute in the market, and often to pull it off, with the mass of radio pop formulas. On their innovative impulses Amuriza believes that “we must be daring.” “Also, at that moment you do not realize the impact of those changes retrospectively. Perhaps we are looking too far into the future …”

Kepa Junkera, despite of always seek new ways for that “infernal bellows” -like he called the triki in his first album, “it´s still thrilling in a special way with the most classic sound of the trikitixa:  “Fasi, Epelde, Leon Bilbao… were persons with a special charisma and when I hear those sounds something stirs up inside of me.” But this time, in addition to the innovations proposed by Xabier and the electronic bases, the guy of Rekalde “I wanted to do new things with the choir.” And that’s where Astulez Basilio comes in, the director of Leioa Kantika Koral, “a man who does an awesome job,” according to Junkera. He was a great challenge for a choir because, for one, it meant to record separately and in one same microphone the alto, bass … But the final result has been impeccable. “It’s exciting to see a group of girls so young and so serious liking to do new things,” says Junkera.

This type of projects “stimulate the imagination and inspiration and making you enjoy it,” says rekaldetarra (a person born in the Rekalde) proudly looking at the CD. “And that is important,” he adds. Both artists agreed that sentimentally finishing the job “is a prided.” To which Kepa adds that Betibizi “is an album that gives us fresh air.” New and innovative. Something about what Amuriza reconsiders in the preface of the album: “The effect has been fascinating.” It will cushion the effect for the conversion of novelty in practice?”  Not so. May it continue to open new paths, even if the circumstances appear to be adverse.  A great album.

www.kepajunkera.com

Share on Facebook

Kepa Junkera´s new release BETI BIZI is now on sale.

The album presented under the seal HIRI RECORDS is the latest work of the musician of Rekalde (a neighborhood of Bilbao) for the moment, with the collaboration of the writer and “bertsolari” (Basque improviser singer) Xabier Amuriza and the voices of the choir LEIOA KANTIKA KORALA.

A different and innovative album with that special touch of Kepa Music seals the unmistakable style of this project.  A brave, energetic album that brings together our past with our present, in an elegant proposal without complexes, a CD that will surprise everyone who listens.

BETI BIZI on sale and also in Internet, for more information “CLICK HERE”

Share on Facebook

Published in the newspaper DEIA on June 24, 2010

MY first contact with him was through reading several of his books. What an incredible ability to tell stories filled with strength and flowing in an amazing way! Of all, I was honored with this dedication to me, which is the following:

The oldest music was the human voice.  Somehow we could say the man discovered the music within himself, inside each sound of a word of our rude forefathers, even when it was going to be necessary thousands of years before the first one would be formed.  The music has always latent within the man, as a possibility, but, multiple and murmuring, it also lived in nature.  The birds already singing, the wind whistling in the cavities of the grottoes, the cascades; thunders like a song of Richard Wagner in advance and altogether, and what we can also imagine, was the nature’s great orchestra, where an empty seat awaits the arrival of man.  Which finally appeared holding in his hands a bone with holes called flute. And also a round object with a hole, with a skin stretched over the opening, which would receive the name of drum.  Also bringing with him his own voice, and without no doubt, was one of the most sublime moments in history of mankind, in which a human being, man or woman, stood up to sing.  From there on, it may not appear at first glance, but the songs collected by Kepa Junkera are about this, in this unique recording that surely will seek new directions in the composition and musical interpretations.  To sing the language of others is the first challenge.

José Saramago, the prologue for the album ETXEA (2008).

After learning that Saramago had left us, I read again and again and my feelings pile up in my head. What fascinated me most about him was his sincerity and honesty that he has always been. Saramago was not great because of his work or for his Nobel, just of his pure essence. That is the real Nobel that we should all achieve after facing our own destiny, the ultimate challenge. MILA ESKER lagun!!! (THANK YOU, my friend!!!)

Share on Facebook