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split 77 waiting for daybreak Myriam Gartzia   Split 77, waiting for daybreak

You’ve said that one of Split77’s most incisive strengths is to stay away from Basque Culture references. The market for Basque music is small, if you stray too far...

Aritz Aranburu, (guitar and vocals): We avoid references from our surrounding environment because we think it’s healthy for the band. It’s important for us not to repeat or mimic those references. There’s nothing new gonna be invented in the world of music, no-one’s coming up with anything new, you can’t, it’s all been done before. What we try is to find our own voice, so to say. In order to do that, you need to clear away all these local references, even more so if you sing in Basque, the idea being that trying new stuff is beneficial, for Basque musicians too. People often tell us the music we play is “not from here”, but I don’t think that’s totally true because music cannot be defined by borders, particularly if you have interiorised these other musical movements and genres not typically associated with our surroundings here and made them your own. Here you have a lot of bands playing Basque heavy metal. That’s not a bad thing at all, at least if you open up new doors for those foreign bands here.

You have a clear tendency to experiment.

Possibly. But it’s not a conscious thing with us. We create our music with all the tools available to us in our rehearsal room, and though it may seem quite complex, it’s really rather simple and intuitive. That’s why we named the record eponymously (Split 77, Noizpop, 2010), because we felt the record really represents us and where we are at now, if you like.

On the new record there are songs that the people that normally listen to you will quickly get, to put it one way, and there are others that are probably more personal.

On the one hand, there are songs that are more readily accessible and, on the other, there are those that are closer to what we want to do. At the end of the day, we really have nothing to lose, we never have had. What’s more, with the music industry in the state it is currently in, it’s easier and more interesting to cut certain ties and take a gamble on a more personal approach to things. Now is the time for bands to take their future into their own hands, to begin to move away from the record label and industry set-up because this set-up belittles bands’ work. Once those shackles are gone, a band can regain 100% of any investment they make, and at the same time the band can also create in whatever way it wants. It’s the only way for a band to get back all their time, effort, work and investment; if it were in the hands of a record label, this wouldn’t happen.

And what effects have these new means of reproduction had on your music?

Internet has been good for the distribution of music, it’s really interesting in that respect. And if you don’t sell 200 records because they have been downloaded for free… well, the loss is not that big. I think that for all Basque musicians, regarding the distribution of their music, it’s certainly advantageous. I don’t know if there is a single Basque musician it doesn’t benefit… maybe Kepa Junkera. Anyway, I don’t know if it’s a little or a lot, but our work has its value.

You sing a couple of your songs in English, the eternal debate about singing in English once again raises its ugly head…

Iskander sings them both because I think he feels more comfortable that way. I know I sing in Basque because it’s my language, but that’s all there is to it, nothing else.

I don’t think that calling you a band that mixes rock and electronica really defines you properly.

Our rock side is very evident in our live shows because we love the magic and energy of rock. But there is another side to us, especially when we are writing material. That’s our real language, using samplers and sequencers, but as I have said the rocker part comes out more on stage. Our music should probably be more corseted by the use of electronic equipment but that’s where the magic and energy or rock also becomes part of our language, because we feel comfortable in those parameters as well.