In May 1987, Kepa Junkera entered Elkar’s old studios to record his first album, already carrying a remarkable trajectory in trikitixa competitions. He had been several times Bizkaia’s youth champion in Zeanuri, outperforming contemporaries such as Maurizia, Basilio Txiki and Larrauri, and at the age of seventeen he reached the final of the Euskal Herriko Trikitixa Txapelketa (the Basque Country Trikitxa Competition) alongside Iñaki Ramos, achieving second place in a controversial edition. He had also collaborated on the recording of “Alemanian euskaraz” with Oskorri, appearing as support act or special guest. Natxo de Felipe introduced him as “a young man from Rekalde with astonishing mastery of the triki”, while Kepa recalls that his first rehearsals took place while playing inside a bathroom as the Beti Jai Alai dance group practised nearby; it was then that Natxo, intrigued, asked who he was and what he was doing there. For the recording, he counted on the support of Jean Phocas, engineer for both Oskorri and Elkar, who was already working with artists such as Mikel Laboa, Benito Lertxundi, Ruper Ordorika, Itoiz and Errobi.

Kepa was not alone in this adventure: he was joined by his neighbourhood friends, trikitilari Iñaki Zabaleta and José Mari Santiago, nicknamed Motriku since their Beti Jai Alai days. Both lived close to him in Rekalde, separated by little more than a street, and shared endless sessions of practice and recording. Motriku remembers those studio hours with nostalgia, as well as the visits to the restaurant at the Hípica, where they always ordered the famous cheesecake. “We were just kids, but we knew exactly what we wanted,” he recalls.

The album contains traditional Basque rhythms —trikitixa, kalejira, fandango, porrusalda and arin-arin— combined with five coplas written by bertsolari Xabier Amuriza. Among them stands out the kalejira “Anbototik Oizera”, which, due to a mistake in the lyrics, cost them second place in the 1986 final. Although street-procession tunes traditionally did not include lyrics, Kepa and Motriku wanted to innovate. The songs contain geographical references to Biscay and Gipuzkoa, mentioning towns such as Ondarroa, Lekeitio, Bermeo, Erandio, Santurtzi, Durango and the Arratia valley, as well as emblematic mountains including Anboto, Oiz, Gorbea, Sollube, Jata, Uzturre and Ernio. They also reflect urban life in Bilbao at the time, including its environmental problems.

Record label: Elkar. Production: Kepa Junkera.