{"id":7669,"date":"2025-09-28T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/?p=7669"},"modified":"2026-07-04T18:03:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T18:03:00","slug":"basque-fact-of-the-week-neomak-new-sounds-from-old-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2025\/09\/28\/basque-fact-of-the-week-neomak-new-sounds-from-old-roots\/","title":{"rendered":"Basque Fact of the Week: Neomak, New Sounds from Old Roots"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-background wp-block-paragraph\">Rediscovering Gatibu at Jaialdi was a great experience, but Lisa, Rose, and I were also blown away by a band I\u2019d never heard of before: Neomak. Opening for Gatibu in the Idaho Central Arena, Neomak both had a more traditional sound than Gatibu \u2013 trikitixa, tambourines, and drums \u2013 but pushed that sound in new and innovative ways. The steady drum beat instilled an energy that was only rivaled by the women dancing and singing on stage. Another band I would highly recommend.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-33.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"166\" src=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-33-300x166.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7670\" srcset=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-33-300x166.png 300w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-33.png 672w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Neomak playing at the Idaho Central Arena during Jaialdi 2025. Photo by Blas Uberuaga.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Neomak was formed in 2020. Their name, translating from the Greek to\u00a0<em>new moon<\/em>, represents their goals of transforming tradition, of keeping their roots but making something new.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Originally comprised of seven young women, Neomak got their start touring with renowned Basque musician Kepa Junkera. After the touring stopped, they realized they had more to say, more to do, and so they started Neomak. In 2025, three of the members of the group left with the remaining four continuing to find new ways to interpret Basque music and stories. Those four are Alaitz Escudero Unanue, Leire Etxezarreta Learreta, Irati Gutierrez Artetxe, and Garazi Otaegi Lasarte.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In 2022, after releasing only two songs, Neomak toured the Basque Country before releasing their first self-titled album later that year. In 2024, they composed and released a song, \u201cHor Daude,\u201d in support of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/eu.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Herri_Urrats\">Herri Urrats<\/a>, a festival that promotes the <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2019\/12\/08\/basque-fact-of-the-week-ikastolas-the-basque-schools\/\">ikastolas<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2024\/07\/07\/basque-fact-of-the-week-what-is-the-difference-between-euskadi-euskal-herria-and-the-bac\/\">Iparralde<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>As they discuss in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nuevarevolucion.es\/neomak-nosotras-seremos-la-voz-que-muchas-veces-nuestras-abuelas-no-han-podido-tener\/\">this interview<\/a>, their songs give voice to their grandmothers, to the women who haven\u2019t had a voice. \u201cWe begin by talking about the stories told by our grandmothers and saying that we will be the voice they often haven\u2019t been able to have. We continue with a critique of the repression of our grandmothers, the church, some traditional ideas, etc. We shift gears by talking about the taboo surrounding sex and end with a vindication and critique of today\u2019s society with the song \u201cXXI.mendekua,\u201d which has a double meaning: the 21st Century and the 21st Revenge. It\u2019s a song that champions support among women and empowerment.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ilargi Berriak\" width=\"474\" height=\"356\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4qMw2gZpDv8?list=PLrzNBGS5T4x0WxFKr0w0C9-iDw6DX6CJ6\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-background wp-block-paragraph\">A full list of all of Buber&#8217;s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/basque-fact-of-the-week-archive\/\">Archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Primary sources: <em><a href=\"https:\/\/eu.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Neomak\">Neomak<\/a><\/em>, Wikipedia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rediscovering Gatibu at Jaialdi was a great experience, but Lisa, Rose, and I were also blown away by a band I\u2019d never heard of before: Neomak. Opening for Gatibu in the Idaho Central Arena, Neomak both had a more traditional sound than Gatibu \u2013 trikitixa, tambourines, and drums \u2013 but pushed that sound in new [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7670,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[836,880,6],"tags":[4196,4197,4198,139,4199,103,4200],"class_list":["post-7669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basque-fact-of-the-week","category-fiestas","category-music","tag-alaitz-escudero-unanue","tag-garazi-otaegi-lasarte","tag-irati-gutierrez-artetxe","tag-kepa-junkera","tag-leire-etxezarreta-learreta","tag-music","tag-neomak"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-33.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2sYNu-1ZH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7669"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7671,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7669\/revisions\/7671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}