There are just a few days left until August 7. A day that for many sounds like tragedy, pain and an unprecedented flood that devastated the Las Nieves de Biescas taking with it people, lives and memories. 30 years have passed since that but Ander Zubillaga remembers it as if it were yesterday. Among other things because he was there, seeing everything when he was just 6 years old. Now pain and tragedy become melody in the song that the artist has published under the name of «Biescas» and that goes beyond music.
«It’s the most personal song I’ve written so far. It is born from a real memory that I lived with my family when I was six years old. For a long time it was an image that stayed there, stored and with this piece I have tried to transform it into music,» says the artist, a native of Tolosa (Guipúzcoa).
Without using words, because they are not necessary either, Ander and his guitar turn the melody into memory and feeling. He uses the «fingerstyle» in which he is already a specialist to recount «the fear, the urgency of family protection and the overwhelming silence that ensued after the flood». «I didn’t want to tell the story in words but to let the guitar, the rain, the strings, the percussion and the choir build that journey, from the calm of a normal day to fear, flood and silence,» he explains.
«IN A MATTER OF SECONDS, EVERYTHING CHANGED»
Ander Zubillaga lived that August 7, first, as a normal day. «We went to the swimming pool, played ping-pong, lived a camping life… But in the afternoon it began to rain very hard and, in a matter of seconds, everything changed. From the caravan we saw how the water that came down the road was transformed into a great wave of mud. My father took me in his arms and we managed to get to the bathroom area and there, together with other people, we climbed up to the structure and waited until the worst was over,» she explains.
The worst happened and took the lives of 87 people to whom Ander pays tribute in the song. «It is my small tribute to the deceased and to all the families affected by that catastrophe and publishing it now, coinciding with the 30th anniversary, has a very special meaning. It is a way of looking back with respect, emotion and memory,» explains the artist. The song can already be heard on both Spotify and Youtube as an act of collective memory and tribute.
