Featured album: Haizea - Hontz Gaua

[Trane]

http://www.progarchives.com/progress...01072017_r.JPG

Second-last European stop before setting sails towards the new world

Haizea - Hontz Gaua

haizea.jpg

Tracks Listing
1. Anderea (3:35)
2. Egunarn Hastapena (5:43)
3. Argizagi Ederra (4:15)
4. Arnaki (5:25)
5. Hontz Gaua (14:17) :
- a) Hegoa Heldu da
- b) Maritxiki Korupeko


Line-up
- Amaia Zubiria / vocals
- Xabier Lasa / electric & acoustic guitars, winds (adarrak, alboka)
- Xabier Iriondo / flute, acoustic & Portuguese guitars
- Gabriel Barrena / bass, contrabass
- Carlos Busto / drums, percussion, xylophone, congas
With:
- Pello (Lizarralde ?) / voice
- Borja Lertxundi / violin

Here is what my buddy Bob (ClemofNazareth) had to say on PA

Haizea’s second and final release starts off where their debut left off: simple, unassuming folk music with very little embellishment. Decent music, but like their first album this isn’t very progressive or very memorable.
Things get better quickly though, and the next track “Egunaren Hastapena” shows some experimentation with intertwined flute and strings (cello and violin I think, but the liner notes don’t say), plus of course the ever-present Spanish guitar. This is a very beautiful instrumental that would hold its own alongside similar works from Los Jaivas, Calix, or even that odd French band Chrysalide. Very ethereal, delicate arrangements with most emphasis on the mood as opposed to a story or theme. “Argizagi Ederra” continues in much the same vein, but here the singer Amaia’s singing and chanting blend seamlessly with the flute.

The band introduces a bit of a rocking sound and electric guitar (or possibly acoustic with metal strings) on “Arnaki”. This is one of those rolling instrumentals with a great sense of melody that just makes you feel a little happier for having heard it. Quite a departure for the band but well done.

And the closing “Hontz Gaua” can probably be considered the band’s magnum opus, or as close as they would ever get since it is both their longest and last song they recorded together. Here the band finally shows some definite Basque tendencies with soft hand drums, pastoral chanting, and several laid back wooden and metal percussive instruments. But the dominant instrument is once again the flute, which persists throughout except in the middle a bit where what appears to be a xylophone is mixed with the guitar in a sort of hypnotic trance passage. The song winds down after fourteen minutes or so with a closing vocal passage by Amaia that I suppose is the finishing up of a tale of some sort, but one has to know the language to tell for sure.

This is a much more experimental and adventurous album than the band’s debut, and it is kind of sad that this is was final release because I think they managed to show their capacity to stretch themselves quite well and would probably have made some really great music had they stayed together long enough for a few follow-ups. As it is this is a four star affair, and is well recommended to fans of folk music and also to world music fans that prefer their sounds on the mellow side.

review link: http://www.progarchives.com/Review.asp?id=156450

[Scrotum Scissor]

One of the great Basque folk-progressive albums, along with selected ones by Itziar, Itoiz, Enbor and Errobi. Of course, all Basque bands from the 70s basically cultivated some level of "folk" element, but none as purely as Haizea. Banda do Casaco took on the same position in Portugal in being pretty singular at what they did.

I was never too crazy about the debut Haizea from a few years earlier, though.

[Trane]

I was never too crazy about the debut Haizea from a few years earlier, though.

Well, it's a fairly different beast - sounding more like Fairport - and only feature light psych/prog touches, especially on the A-side (one track sounds quasi Andean folk).

The filpside already announces (slightly) their second album, especially inside the 10-mins clsing track.

[bill g]

Any soundclips available anywhere?

[Scrotum Scissor]

Hugues support for this one!

[TheH]

Never dived to far in the Basque Prog scene but I own this one and Ezekiel by Itoiz.

Both can be heartly recommended and show some nice Folky Approach.

[Trane]

Any soundclips available anywhere?

Hugues support for this one!

Right away m'lords

Never dived to far in the Basque Prog scene but I own this one and Ezekiel by Itoiz.

Both can be heartly recommended and show some nice Folky Approach.

Actually all Basque 'prog" groups were into folk, partly because the people have had to shut their mouthes (not hust in Basque) diring the awfully long dictatorship of Franco.
As soon as he was gone, both the Basque and Catalan started again with their specific cultures.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Actually all Basque 'prog" groups were into folk, partly because the people have had to shut their mouthes (not hust in Basque) diring the awfully long dictatorship of Franco.

Yes. But there's considerably less of it with acts like Magdalena, Lisker and Sakre. And there's a substantial difference between melodic folk-rock groups like Itziar and Enbor and the "spiritual" sound of Izukaitz or Haizea, with Itoiz and Errobi somewhere in the middle. They all had something going for them, though - and that Basque tongue always leaves itself beautifully to tone.

These are recommended names.

[Rarebird]

The only Basque album I have is Oïo - Anima
Not sure it is prog though I heard it first in a prog-show, I think.

[TCC]

Good Call Trane!.
I have not heard it for a long time and this is a good opportunity to "dust it off" with the first one and with some of the good recommendations made by Richard ... I must admit that I really like this type of music. :-)

Regards,
Tomás.

[Trane]

The only Basque album I have is Oïo - Anima
Not sure it is prog though I heard it first in a prog-show, I think.

Yup, they're Basque, but on the French side (and one' could classify it as "prog folk")

Yes. But there's considerably less of it with acts like Magdalena, Lisker and Sakre. And there's a substantial difference between melodic folk-rock groups like Itziar and Enbor and the "spiritual" sound of Izukaitz or Haizea, with Itoiz and Errobi somewhere in the middle. They all had something going for them, though - and that Basque tongue always leaves itself beautifully to tone.

These are recommended names.

Yup, good analysis... and the three you pointed out are indeed sometimes more hard/blues rock, and not folk.

[TCC]

Of interest:

- 101 discos vascos:
http://101discosvascos.blogspot.com/?m=0

“ These pages contain a selection of 101 discs of different music groups originating in the Basque Country (Europe). The order is purely chronological, and covers nearly fifty years, from 1969 to 2016. The ultimate goal is to promote and provide a sample of the surprising number of interesting proposals that have emerged within the Basque music scene. Although Basque is a minority language and, although the Basques are a stateless people, the quality and variety of offers modern Basque music is pretty striking. Thanks to current technological means, is left to the reader to enjoy it in whole or only part. In these times of calculated uniformity, when the major media (including the media of the Basque Country) are limited basically to the constant emission of the same poor commercial products, culturally empty, the power to discover new sound spaces is a great adventure. We encourage intro in it...”

Regards,
Tomás.