ERROBI

This debut from the Basque folk duo Duhalde-Ducau is a rather pleasant surprise for the proghead. Their type of rock holds many interesting twists and a full instrumentation of a group, even if they are presented as a duet. All of their songs are sung in Basque (the counter-shock of Spain's deliverance of the Franco regime and the sudden provincial or local traditions allowed again) and are translate in the booklet in French and Spanish. Funnily enough and as expected from Basque, they chose to first paste the French translation before the Spanish ones. The naïve artwork depicts a map of their ideal land with the waters of the lakes spelling out their names watering/milking the land.

While the songs have a definite folk rock flavour, but more in the 60's west coast rather than the traditional folklore with ancient music, the album is anything but groundbreaking, but remains pleasant. All of the tracks feature a predominantly acoustic guitar duo, but a good deal of them have some interesting bass works, and some other twist: the closing Euzkadi (their region in Basque) hassome Gregorian ambiances. No real stand outs but no stinkers either.

Hardly an essential album really, but if you have a chance at spinning it (even for sampling), it might just be worth your trouble. But if you are into Basque influenced music, you might want to try out Ametsaren Bidea, first.

Another name in the huge list of folk rock bands emerging in Spain between 1975 and 1980.Errobi were actually formed in 1973 in Pais Vasco by Mikel Ducau (vocals,guitars and keyboards) and Anje Duhalde (guitar and voclas).With Beñat Amorena on drums and Mikel Halty on bass they released the eponymous LP in 1975 on Elkar.

''Errobi'' is a mix of soft,Blues and Folk Rock with light CAMEL influences on electric guitars,entirely sung in the Basque dialect.The album features simple melodies,standard song formats in short durations and a smooth atmosphere and is somewhat split between acoustic and electric music.Fellow natives ENBOR is a good reference point,but Errobi's music is less inspired and with no sign of progressive twists.The whole result is a pleasant and positive listening with decent guitar work,a few interesting bass lines and romantic vocals, which flaws fine but it lacks in energy,rich content and dynamics.

This is not a bad album,it contains a good amount of Basque Folk Music,but ''Errobi'' is straightly headed for fans of soft rock and it's a rather strange field for the demanding prog fan...2.5 stars.