We are heard that there are people who are constantly travelling for work and come to the head of business or businessmen. It's a special case for you.

I tell them all around me not to ask easy questions, because they're the most difficult questions for me to answer. I didn't even know how to answer when I was asked where I lived for some time. The simplest way to explain my profession is to say that I am autonomous, that I am hired by the different groups working on the old music circuit and that these groups move in the centre of Europe. Based on these hiring, I sort out my agenda. And then, on the other hand, I create songs that I first opened with the name Neighbor, which I now open with the name Maite Larburu. It can be said that these ancient music groups are the sponsors of Maite Larburu and Neighbor.

You're a nomad with the excuse of music. But to some extent, it seems that Neighbor and the path taken on this album have been the ones that have brought you back to Euskal Herria.

I did not want to return to the Basque Country. In Amsterdam they threw away what was our house, we created Negibhor, my musical path joined the reality here… But still, I didn’t want to come back. And yet I've come back. That is absurd! What decides things? The head? Or is it the body that decides and then tries to give an explanation? It's nice, but above all surprising. Looking at the three albums, Ura was created in the pocket of Amsterdam, when my neighbor, Josh Cheatman, moved to the band. By the time we created the second album, that world had already broken, and therefore, it's a moving record, by the way, between Amsterdam and Hernani. Underneath the bones, instead, it's a return disk.

Is it easy to unite your two faces, the one that plays old music and the one that sings?

I think one owes a lot to the other. The two sides are on me, and I jump back and forth. Sometimes, that jump occurs with the audacity that gives you ignorance. I wouldn't say I have a lot of knowledge of ancient music. But I know him, because I've dedicated myself to it. In the world of creation, I don't have that much knowledge, and that is why we need a point of courage. They're very different, it's true, but music is music, and within me, at least, one feeds the other.

I have heard you say that this album is more present Maite Larburu, which plays old music, than Neigbor.

Yes, but not because the disc has an aesthetic of ancient music, but because I've taken the violin. Under the bones, I've taken this out under the name Maite Larburu, but after all, it's a continuation of Neighbor. Josh Cheatman is not there, but I have learned from him. Also their guitars, because I've used them to record. It was hard for me to put the violin in Neighbor's world. I didn't know what to do. Now, instead, it's been easier for me to take that step. But I need other instruments, especially because I don't know them, and that gives me a chance to go to places I didn't expect. The violin, despite knowing him well, has surprised me in this process, and that has been beautiful.

When you play old music, you're just one more member of the group. Half a Neighbor's partner. Now you have published the album with your first name and last name. Is the responsibility slower?

You play what someone has died when playing old music, and although there are many experts around you, the responsibility is also lower. When I talk to Maite Larburu's name, I'm on the front line, and the songs are mine. Words too. It's more personal, but I didn't want to do anything more intimate. I make those songs so that the listener approaches oneself. Self toward him. I'm the actor, the creator and the performer, and it's normal that I'm a little confused, but I'm not the protagonist of the song.

The contemporary history of Basque music is full of examples: musicians who have had a leg out have brought what they have seen and learned abroad. Have you also been very affected by what you have known in the centre of Europe?

I don't know if they've become or will become influences here, but I've brought many things I've learned. Learned especially from my peers: I have wonderful working musicians spread all over the world. I've been taught to jump over the complexes I had, especially a couple, making a big contribution. There are people with wings that contaminate your feathers when you're with them. I always think, "Oh, let's see if they last." We infect each other, giving us what each one brings of themselves. That's on the record, but it's not the one I've seen in a group or in a concert, but the one I've learned by making music together, one by one.

The role of percussion on the disc is significant. With unconventional instruments, you've created very special environments.

The story is long. I asked photographer Nagore Legarreta to make some pictures for the album, and as she did it, she realized one of her projects. Hysteron was the name; and as Nagore does photos with cans, Beñat Iturriotz and Aida Torres also put the can with a collection for the soundtrack project. I thought it was a great idea, and I thought, because under the bones there was something very close, cans and casseroles were a proper sound. I think we have succeeded. It is not a very common training for the direct, and that may have its limits, but it has been very nice to know them. Underneath the bones was the first song I made for this album, but when I met Aida and BEÑAT, I decided to change everything. With the same letter, I created a new song for them.

In the case of the lyrics, you also tend to use words as a musical instrument, with the pronunciation you play a lot, not only with the meanings.

Each language has its melody, its pronunciation, its tone… Surely it will be something I have learned, among others, with Harkaitz Cano. Some letters are yours. It reinvents words, it gives new meanings. The truth is that I have always liked to write, although I have never dared to do anything public. I like it a lot, even if it's for me. I learned with Neighbor that my writings were the song, and now I've followed it.

We will once know how Cano does so many things at once and finely.

I met her a long time ago, when I was about 15 years old. Korrika Kulturala was organized, my sister was working at AEK, and several musicians came together to do something. Someone said he knew a writer and with him we completed the performance. We did quite a lot. Then, on the second album, I asked for something, but in the end I didn't put it on the record. And this time, he's had time to give it to me. He has a lot of talent and we dream him a lot, but I don't know how he does it either. He also has a life.

In these songs, but also in Neighbor, there are a few words that are repeated a lot: suitcases, stones, wind…

Everyone has their world and the way to express it. In mine many distances, displacements or feeling are repeated out of place… Those elements already existed in Neighbor and now there are. Especially the distance. It has always been a very important element in my life: it has hurt me a lot, but also a lot of freedoms. As I reflected on how to cross two points, how to gather around that, I realized that it's often in my head, that there are many things that set the distance from me or me to others. And in part, it brings us closer to what's underneath our bones.

What's under the bones?

That is a good question, but I do not know either. I'm me, but not me, Maite Larburu. Something I am, but not just me: being, mine and yours. And it's not just under the bones, but that makes it very close, very intimate. Where does the sky start? It's hard to say, isn't it? Well, also in the bones, it starts to become scarce.

Choose small and close objects to work with more powerful themes. In recent years, the trend has spread.

In my case, what is small is very important. I've always been shocked by greatness. I have to think that I start with something small, because if I start thinking big, my head computer is blocked. I started drawing when I had a bad streak in Amsterdam, and I remember that I started drawing on a paper the size of a stamp. Everything had forgotten me. Starting with something small is my way out of fear.

And in that smallness, the body is very present. The song Extrsistolea reminded me of Eider Rodríguez and Bihotz handiegia.

It is curious, as Eider Rodríguez has also made his contribution to the album. I read the heart too big and I found it delicious. I was going around with the skirt song, and suddenly it seemed to me that Eider was going to help me. I didn't know him, but I lost his shame and wrote to him. I sent him a doodle and when he read it he told me that it was very nice, that I didn't think there was anything to change. But he asked me a question and suddenly he changed my song up and down: She went from “remove the skirt” to “put it.” When I finished, I sent him and Eider was the first person to listen to the completed song. He will say that he has done nothing, but how he can change everything with a simple question… It is a small thing, but a great contribution.

The song Gona, even if in a playful way, has a more evident vindictive tone than other songs, or can be interpreted as such.

I leave the interpretation open. I think there's a feminist look, but it's more than that the song. You use the element of the skirt, which we associate with women, but for me the main message of that song is to put yourself in the other's place. Again, the question of distance: how to get together, putting yourself in the other's place. That's putting the skirt. In this case, when the man wears his skirt he places himself in the woman's place, but that's nothing but a meaning of the song.

He also criticizes that “judging passion” is easy.

That's what the song says, and I think it does. Not only do others belong to you, but to yourself. Passion has always been the field of man: it is natural, it cannot control. Women have been considered something ugly or non-existent. Here is the whole social judgment, among other things, what happens in the violations: Did you drink? Did you wear a skirt? Did you dance? That's very painful and hard. A rape does not only support trials in the courts, but also social trial. “Wear your skirt” says the song, because I want to think it’s good, you don’t have to give up. It's not just one gender, it's everybody's, and it's everybody's responsibility to take it. Not only as a female element, but also as a good, fresh thing.

You even talk about a green dog in a song. Is that how you feel, too?

It has taken me to boast, but I am. I've always felt like this. I haven't felt part of anything. It is something that has cost me since adolescence, I have lived with many doubts, and it seemed to me that the others were very sure of their feelings and convictions. It seemed to me that I had a pressure cooker about to explode and that I didn't understand anything. I've been a green dog, being out I've been from here. While I was living here, I made classical music… Very uncool. I write but I’m not a writer, I make music but of many kinds… But the truth is that, although I’m not proud, I have at least accepted it. It also has its benefits: “Tipa writes; she doesn’t write very well, but she’s not a writer.” “Sing: not very well, but he is not a singer...” I always have an excuse to escape. The green dog is also lucky.