Ibon Errazkin was the guitarist and main composer in LE MANS, a band from San Sebastián (Spain) that was in active through great part of the nineties. They left four excellent albums: “Le Mans” (1993), “Entresemana” (1994), “Saudade” (1996) and “Aquí vivía yo” (1998), documenting perfectly a sound that would influence many Spanish bands in the following years: an acoustic, elegant, shy, whispery sound. They would also manage to get popular in many other places: their music was released in USA, Japan, Mexico and Argentina.
Though LE MANS was the most important project Ibon was involved in, his sign can also be traced in many other bands and activities: bands like AVENTURAS DE KIRLIAN (which was in fact the predecessor of LE MANS) and DAILY PLANET, or more dance-oriented projects like INSTRÜMENTAL. We must also mention his labour as producer of albums such as “Satélite 99” (ANA D) and “Impermeable” (CARLOS BERLANGA). Besides, Ibon has recently composed the soundtrack for “Gente pez”, a film directed by Jorge Iglesias.
In May 2000 Elefant Records releases Ibon Errazkin’s first solo album, in which he gets far away from the sound we were used to expecting from him in LE MANS. Instead he offers us a completely instrumental album featuring a lushy cocktail of influences, as varied as attractive: reggae, New Orleans music, country, rock or even hip-hop, though all these styles are only starting points from which Ibon creates new and original music.
In the album Ibon was helped by many friends such as Murky and Guillermo from PATRULLERO MANCUSO, or Antonio Galvañ from PARADE. But both tracks in this single feature Ibon almost completely alone, therefore the sound is very different to the one to be found in “Ibon Errazkin”.
“Ikastola” (“School” in euskera, the language spoken in the Basque country) is a strange and minimalist track, which is as far away from the album sound as from LE MANS. A curious experiment constructed over a repetitive sequencer background. Javier Leal’s trombone draws some thin melodic lines over it, and Ibon himself adds some piano notes.
In “Sequía” (“Drought”) the main element is Ibon’s classic nylon strings guitar, splendidly naked. A small mysterious and relaxed treat. On the background you can slightly hear the drone-like sound of a bass played with a violin bow, courtesy of Olaf Ladousse from SOLEX.
The sleeve is, again, delicious: Javier Aramburu has done a slight variation of the album one, but now Ibon is accompanied by Teresa Iturrioz, who wrote with him all LE MANS’ songs.
