Back

Basque. Playlist. #1: Neomak

03 Mar 2023
Neomak

Neomak brings together seven female voices, featuring melodies filled with witchcraft, tambourines, and dance.

Neomak, which means "new moons" in Greek, chose the band’s name for the title of their first album. The band members have spent a lifetime entrenched in trikitia or trikitixa, the Basque diatonic accordion that originated in Italy and is heard in popular Basque festivals and folk tunes, usually accompanied by the tambourine. The women from Neomak previously worked with Kepa Junkera under the name “Sorginak” (Witches), precursor of Basque folk music in Euskara. Junkera was the 2004 winner of the Latin Grammy Award for Best Folk Album for his album ‘K’. They played in different corners of the globe, but also drew from new, more contemporary styles.

In their first album, Neomak fused two styles in a traditional yet original project. By combining organic sounds with new technologies, they bring to the music scene a modern reading of tradition coupled with innovative staging. Freely creating their own sounds, Neomak bathes the traditional trikitixa in electronics, motivating listeners to get up and dance.

To access this Spotify playlist, please agree to enable statistical and marketing cookies. You can accept these cookies by clicking the button below.

Do you want to learn more about Basque music? Download this book for free.

Back

Articles you might be interested in

Alain Urrutia
Art

Alain Urrutia, challenging the passage of time

On one wall of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao hang 40 small paintings. Facing us, we see a landscape or a sparrow, a gaze, a feather, and a mirror reflecting the visitor in 19th and 20th century circular and oval gilded frames. The author of this time-defying mosaic is Alain Urrutia.

Kirmen Uribe in his appartment in New York. Photo: Oier Aranzabal
Literature and books

Kirmen Uribe and skyscrapers lined with books

New York is an impossible puzzle made up of pieces of the world. Immigrants erected the skyscrapers that caress the clouds, and built the imagery that symbolises the city. The history of New York has been written by immigrants and since 2018 Kirmen Uribe (Ondarroa, 1970), one of the most relevant Basque writers of his generation, has also become part of this mosaic of identities, languages and cultures.

Art

Bodies that take to the streets

At the turn of the new century, a woman in a black skirt stood in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge, facing the camera. She opened her legs and began to urinate, standing there out in the open.