Joseba Irazoki - Onomatopeikoa II

Very happy to finally have Joseba’s work become part of Hegoa’s family. A versatile and restless Basque musician who has an extensive discography with almost 20 albums released. Born in 1974 and based in Bera, Nafarroa, Joseba has been leaving his mark on a heterogeneous amalgam of projects and adventures leaving his most introspective and personal self in the works in which he has dared to sign with his first name.

“Onomatopeikoa II” follows on from
Irazoki's 2017 Gitarra Onomatopeikoa
release, and that album's sense of
untethered, questing curiosity is not only
carried over but expanded upon even
further here. Combining a fully committed
approach to the guitar with an almost
egoless lightness of touch, this album
builds upon the already impressively
scopious range of Gitarra Onomatopeikoa to dizzying effect.
Irazoki makes full use of an impressively
broad palette. Yet nothing feels forced,
nothing is for show – there’s just a sense
of open-hearted generosity.
In lesser hands such a whirlwind tour of
style and form might risk failing to get
its hooks in deep enough, yet not only
does Irazoki have the imaginative scope to
tackle these varying approaches to the
instrument, he has the technical chops to
pull it off. Each composition seems to
have an openness of intent that is utterly
disarming; all cards are on the table and
nothing is held back, resulting in a
creative tour de force that builds, piece
by piece, to a unifying cohesiveness that
makes the whole far greater than the sum
of its parts.

Featuring contributions from long-time OTO
favourites Rhodri Davies and Raphael
Roginski, “Onomatopeikoa II” is
nevertheless unmistakably a work of
singular craft and vision.