Even if you don’t understand the Spanish narration/Basque lyrics, take note of the TWO DRUM KITS in the video–hard sound, great music, and most relevant of all, the title of the album is EZLEKUAK (non-cities) a reference (on purpose or not…) to Marc Augé’s essential reading Non-Places: An Anthropology of Supermodernity [here’s a brief review in The Guardian].
This is one of my favorite bands [here are some more song samples on myspace]. They are from the Basque city of Irun and claim as influences such small-label Anglophone bands as Low, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Shellac, June of 44, and Fugazi.
I’m hoping to publish on the band with 33 1/3’s acclaimed series of books on popular music, but since that is incredibly competitive (and since the Basque theme may put the proposal at a disadvantage–despite the increasing focus on books written in a more academic style), I might have to find another venue. Here’s a draft introduction I wrote for a wider audience:
Lisabö’s Urban Soundscapes
Betwixt, between and across the Pyrenees—the mountain range separating Spain and France—there lie the seven lands of the Basque Country, or Euskal Herria as it is known in the Basque language. None other than noted cineaste Orson Welles (the director of Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons) traveled there in the 1950s as part of a BBC television series titled Around the World. Placing his camera “directly on an international border” of a “little-known corner of Europe,” [link to youtube video] Continue reading
urbanculturalstudies 