Glaucoma is a serious eye disease, which some relieve with marijuana the pain caused by the disease. Juantxo Arakama (voice) and Iker Pando (guitar and voice) started singing reggae music on the street four or five years ago with Jokin Albisu (guitar). In 2010 they were joined by Asier Arandia (low) and Pablo Rubio (battery) and decided to form a group near the Bonberenea Gaztetxea de Tolosa. The Glaukoma group therefore became the means to relieve its pain (and ours). In 2011, the Sputnik collection was published along with three other Tolosaldea groups 11. In 2012 came the band's first album (Vol.1) and we were stunned: reggae, rap and ragamuffin in Basque, Spanish and English of great credibility. After an era of silence, in autumn 2013 it came to light Vol.2. This second album is darker, rapper and much more elaborate, has many nuances, and the words of Juantxo are even more rounded. They are young, but they are good musicians and word creators, and they have shown great certainty in the elaboration of less common styles in Euskal Herria, as they have taken short but forceful steps. “We are clear where we want to go, but for that we have to overcome the doubts,” says Juantxo Arakama, the singer of the group and the author of the words.

It is clear that on this album you want to work a lot of styles and sonorities.

Yes. With reggae and rap as axis, any sound related to these two styles can be appropriate for us: dancehall, drum&bass, dubstep...

The songs are more stylish on this album. Is it hard to finish the song?

The process of creating this album has been quite long. We started in February 2013 and we were up until August creating songs without giving concerts. We were circling the songs to the last moment and in the repairs. We go around the songs a lot, yeah.

Each year they are constant and publish half-life records of 7 songs. Planning?

We do this step by step. We know what the next step will be, but what will come next will tell us the next step. The Bonberenea infrastructure allows us to do so.

It's probably the most compelling and descriptive day of the song about chess and, in part, the dichotomy of the night. Will the world of music and musicians always be united at night?

I think musicians don't have to be tied to the night as musicians, we're people who are tied to the night. Still, I can't imagine a night without music, that's true.

I write with the noises of the forest in my head. Where do you locate the jungle? What ‘animals’ inspire you?

Oihana is my head when I write. The world is also the jungle, our environment, almost everything that constitutes the “I”. When I write, I try to have in my head the sounds of this world. In our cement jungles, there are many two-legged animals that can be inspired.

What surprised me the most when I discovered Glaucoma was that young white Gipuzkoans made so fearfully raggamuffin, reggae and hip-hop. Today, can any style be worked out in any geographical area? Does the Internet?

It doesn't care where you live, the important thing is to believe what you do. The Internet is a great tool to find any music from anywhere in the world. It has certainly made things easier for everyone.

Euskal Herria every Sunday ‘Seeing the Conquis’, and yesterday a drink ‘with Goñi and his companions’… You know the street well. Do the young people of Euskal Herria, like those of Spain, no longer have salvation? Are we alienated?

We are alienated the young people of Euskal Herria, the young Spaniards and the young people of all the countries ruled by the capitalist system. Do we have salvation? I want to believe it is. Music itself can be an instrument of alienation or an instrument of alienation control depending on its use.

Hip-Hop has gained more and more strength in the group.

We haven't done it consciously, but it's true that rap has more force than on the previous album. However, we have not forgotten dancehall and raggamuffin.

Together with the Basque, you also use English and Spanish. Attracted by the metric? Wanting to get a message to another audience?

Neither one nor the other. I use Basque and Spanish in my day to day, as well as English as a musical listener. When I write I don't set any limits to myself, I do it as my body asks me.

“The word is a huge job, a creation tax, a jargon that the education system does not understand.” And paradoxically, hip-hop is one of the most effective ways to get messages to young people, right?

Yes. There's a quote from Public Enemy's famous Chuck D: “Rap is black CNN.” Music always has that ability, to convey messages to people.

By the way, at a time when bertsolarism is so well valued, hip-hop is still in the most hidden underground.
It looks like it does. In any case, I dare not say what the underground is, for others that work.

Can the phrase “Wet from the work done by Musu-Truk, endure for you the mill of sovereignty” serve to define your head and attitude?

This phrase, like the song Haritik tiraka, serves to pay tribute to the people who work to create and maintain a self-managed culture in the Basque Country. For us, those people and groups are an example, and we try to seem like their attitude and learn from them.

Far from silence, without belittling others, it is pure poetry ... What do Glaukoma and Blood Tears have in common?

When Iker met Blood Tears of Barcelona we were stunned. They also really liked ours, and we proposed to create a song for the album. What unites us is love for music and the struggle to do what we like. As the motto of Microbio MC says: “I am not afraid, that does not frighten me, I have come to the world to do what I like.” I think he got it right with that phrase, because the two groups joined us.

Is there a group scene around hip-hop in Euskal Herria?

How many stylish scenes are there in the Basque Country? I know there is a Basque scene, but from there I don't know anything else...

Is hip-hop based on inner gaze and psychoanalysis, as shown by the song Al beat de hits?

Yes. Rap, music in general and a miserable notebook can always be used to write or sing about anything. You can also sing each other's knots and questions. In a song you can include anything that is enriching for those who listen to it or for those who sing it, why not?

What are you looking for in Japan?

Our wish was to replace Bonberenea from the beginning, after having passed through the gaztetxe so many Japanese groups. I personally have seen that, despite having a different culture, being on another continent and not understanding anything about language and other things, we are not so different. Even less if there's music through it. Dance, melodies and rhythms are universal, just like people.

What do the hot hip-hop, reggae, jungle, dub sounds have -- to attract you so much?

Flow. Without Flow there is nothing.