About the artist and the CD (from his press kit):
Two years after conquering the Latin Grammy for the Best Folk Album with his latest disk, K, Kepa Junkera (Bilbao, 1965) is back. In his new album, titled Hiri (City), his diatonic accordion, the trikitixa, undergoes a new metamorphosis and broadens its bellows to take in a new array of diverse and manifold universal elements.

Hiri presents a series of reminiscences, evocations and dreams of cities, transmuting urban images, sensations and tales into music. The titles of its tracks refer to cities on various continents: magic worlds whose heartbeats have contributed to the author’s refinement along his untiring travels: “Kiruna” and the Museum of Ice in this city of Lapland; “Agadir”, the Moroccan town where he made 40,000 people dance; “Kokkola” in Finland where he taught a music course at 20º below zero; “Tbilisi” and “Reno”, linked to Euskal Herria by special historical, cultural and even family ties; and nearer to home, “Iurreta” taking him back to his youth.

Hiri has a motley folk sound that also manages to be urban, cosmopolitan. Its every corner and every angle contains a surprise, a happy discovery. “It’s a very dense album,” Kepa recalls, “with a lot of textures that it took me almost two years to put together.” Frederick Manoukian lent a hand with the arrangements as on previous occasions. The intoxicating melodies of Hiri take flight on the wings of the amazing multiethnic orchestral accompaniment.

Junkera reckoned with the help of many of his friends from the world music scene for his adventure, including Patrick Vaillant and his mandolin quartet Melonius, percussionists Glen Vélez and, from Brazil, Marcus Suzano, lyrical pianist Alain Bonnin, and from closer to home, Etxak, Ibon Koteron and the Alos Quartet, Gilles Chabenat, Jean Wellers, sax and flute player Carlos Malta, Lori Cotler, Andy Narell, Aygun, the Catalan group Tactequete, the Bulgarian voices of Bulgarka, Xosé Manuel Budiño, the Italians Enzo Avitabile and I Bottari Di Portico (voice and percussion), the Canarian timple guitars of José Antonio Ramos and Benito Cabrera, and the voices of Mercedes Peón and Eliseo Parra. Hiri also marks Junkera’s second “debut” with ELKAR records, returning to the label on which the musician from Rekalde began his musical career, who says he wants to “work again with the people who know me best”.

The outcome of this reunion is striking: a Basque production with an international hallmark supported by a contract for sponsorship by the Basque insurance company LAGUN ARO - something unthinkable in the world of folk and ethnic music only a few years ago and guaranteed to carry his new repertoire far and wide. Hiri is the confirmation of Kepa Junkera’s place as one of our most important ambassadors, a world-level representative of Basque music and heir to the veteran pioneers. Listen to Hiri: the unending journey continues… perpetually… taking us towards the city of our desire.