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Written in fRoots issue 369, Mar 2014


KEPA JUNKERA
Galiza
Fol Música 100FOL 1074 (2013)

Basque trikitixa maestro Kepa’s newest big project is a look westward from Euskadi along Iberia’s north coast to the traditional music and musicians of Galicia. Physically big too: a classy 23 cm square hardback version of a CD booklet containing texts and elegant illustrations (though, less substantially, the two CDs are just tucked into plastic slip-cases stuck inside the front and back covers). Galician label Fol does things well, championing a CD release as an occasion, with a desirable physical object that will be shown as well as played to friends rather than tucked away digitally.
     Sometimes a star musician from one place presenting the music of another can be a matter of grafting himself into bands that already work perfectly well without him, or fronting with flavour-providing guest musicians in tow. But what Kepa has made here is a magnificent celebration and exposition of the essence of Galician traditional music, creating things in collaboration with Galician musicians that they haven’t done themselves. From the wild Euskal irrintzi ululation and plank-pattering txalaparta meeting the wail of Galician gaita in the opening track, and skittering trikitixa bringing a new staccato-reeds dimension to the Galician sound, the two neighbouring but different traditions and instrumentations make a good fit. Not a blurring, but a bringing into sharp focus of what makes Galician music great.
     Plenty of tradition and memorable tunes meld with the present-day arranging and recording ideas of the musicians and bands, who aren’t thrown into a melting-pot or superficial encounters but are each given their own section of from one to three tracks, in which the characteristics and strengths of their particular approach to the music are brought out.
     Some are internationally known; others aren’t but are equally notable. Treixadura’s full-throated group vocal coral sound, with gaitas, drums and tambourine, particularly evokes fond memories of my first teenage encounters with living traditional music in Galicia. The Galician music boom in the late 20th century was rather instrument-dominated, so it’s good to hear plenty of gutsy solo and group singing here. Further strong solo and group vocals from Uxía, Leilía, Davide Salvado, aCentral Folque, Luar Na Lubre, the young coral O Noso Lar, and with the massed harps, gaitas, hurdy-gurdies, violins and traditional percussion of the Rodrigo Romaní-led big band Sondeseu, and Pandereteiros De O Fiadeiro with the tambourines that, as pandeireta and pandero respectively, are a key though differently played feature of both and Galician and Euskal music and often appear on this album, sometimes alongside the txalaparta duo of Iñigo Olazabel and Argibel Euba who create a useful percussion role on many tracks. One important voice, massively influential in today’s Galician music, surprisingly missing is that of Mercedes Peón, but her presence is felt in Banda Das Crechas’ version of Lelele, and her brother Quique is here, singing in the duo Radio Cos whose own album was a highlight last year.
     There are, of course, gaitas – Budiño, Susana Seivane, Cristina Pato and many more – and pretty much all the other pitched and percussion instruments of Galician tradition, joining the singers or in instrumental tracks from such as Os Cempés and the jew’s-harp duo of Emilio and Daniel Do Pando. The album ends with 87-year-old Pazos de Merexo talking about his life playing the diatonic accordion - an instrument much less prominent in Galician music than in Basque - his husky speech gently enhanced by a waltz he composed, played by his grandson and Kepa.

www.folmusica.com


© 2014 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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