"Bok Espok"

Kepa Junkera - Bok Espok (1998)

From the album Bilbao 00:00h



The eighth album of Basque folk musician Kepa Junkera involved over forty folk musicians from around the world. Junkera was born in Bilbao Spain which is where the album got its name. This track he worked with Swedish folk rock band Hedningarma. Junkera plays the Trikiti, a traditional Basque accordion-like-instrument that is almost always pared with tambourine. In this track he lays down a few riffs over and over again to lay down a base line and lets other musicians shine over them. Hendningarma is known for performing with a rock beat (which you can hear on the track from start to finish) and Yoik singing, which is the tight harmony vocals you can hear in the song. Two other traditional instruments show up in a lot of Kepa Junkera songs. The Alboka is a double single reed instrument, which means that it is like two clarinets shoved together in one instrument. It is thought to be Northern African or Arab originally, and made it's way into Spain during the Arab conquest. It remains an important instrument in Basque music. I can't quite hear it distinctly in this track, but I think it may be doubling the vocals. The other instrument is the Txalaparta which is wooden boards played by two musicians with large wooden sticks. It's like a small section of a huge over sized xylophone.