Warm and leafy delicatessen for select palates, the Gecko Turner it remains one of the most unique and distinguished discographies of our popular music.
A shaker of world music that reaches its fifth chapter with “Somebody From Badajoz” (Lovemonk, 2023), as well stocked with soul, funk and Afro-Caribbean rhythms as usual, which comes seven years after her last album. We spoke with Fernando Gabriel Echave (Badajoz, 1966), who is the one who is really hiding behind the brand, so he can tell us about it.
Seven years have passed, a long time since their previous album. If the question is not impertinent: why? What has kept you busy these years?
Well, to answer that I would have to write a book… Why not? Writing books has become fashionable, in fact today he writes or someone writes a book to anyone (laughs). Seriously, what am I going to tell you? I guess the songs have kept me busy, the circumstances, in short, life itself…
“This dedicating yourself to music is a priesthood like any other,” you say on the record’s promo sheet. In what sense?
Well, in the sense that if you dedicate yourself to this thing of writing songs, recording them, and mixing them… if you want to do it well, you have to give yourself totally to the cause and have true devotion to what you do.
“If you want to do this well, you have to have true devotion and give yourself totally”
Your previous albums have been screened in the US and Japan, and you have toured many countries outside of Spain. Some of your new songs are playing on French, English or Japanese radio stations and podcasts, as well as in Canada or the US. Do you think that your music, due to its characteristics, has its natural audience outside of here?
Could be. In Spain there are also people who like this type of music, but it is true that when copyright settlements arrive, more than 60% of what is collected comes from beyond our borders.
Going into specific songs on the album: “Twenty Twenty Vision” sounds a bit like Prince to me, because of the falsetto, because of the atmosphere. He is not usually mentioned among your references. It is?
In “Twenty Twenty Vision” I don’t sing in falsetto, what happens is that I sing in a very high register: the tonality is in yes major, or in seven above, as flamencos would say. Borja (Torres), from Lovemonk Records, also believed it was falsetto. I understand that it may remind you of Prince, but to me the roll of the voice in this song, at some point, evokes more the pinches of Ruth Brown, Little Richard or Michael Jackson. As for Prince, I did have his records when I was in my twenties. I especially liked the album “Around The World In A Day” (1985), and other songs like “When You Were Mine”, “The Beautiful Ones”, “Kiss”, “Cream”… somehow, when I When you listened, it’s as if I were saying: “hey man, look what I do: you can do it too”.
Several languages can be heard in the same song. And I understand that it refers to the 20/20 of the complete vision and also to 2020, the year of the pandemic. How did you experience it and how do you think it has changed or what all of us have changed since then?
The title plays with that double meaning. The lyrics are a kind of look at the society of the twenties of the 21st century and the sensations and monsters that it produces. And yes, in the middle of the song there are a lot of phrases in various languages (English, German, French, Arabic or Portuguese) in the form of sketches from radio and television newscasts, garnished with special effects, somehow representing informational chaos. characteristic of these times. As for the pandemic, well, I lived through it with great concern, of course, like everyone else, but I couldn’t tell you how we’ve changed… I guess we’re a little older (laughs).
“De Balde” introduces posthumous texts by the writer from Badajoz Carlos Lencero, collaborator of Camarón, Pata Negra and Remedios Amaya. How did you find out about his work? How did it influence you?
In the first instance I got to know his work like almost everyone else, through songs like “Everything I like is illegal”, “Oh, José, I sing to you Camarón” or “I’m staying in Seville until”. I didn’t get to meet him in person, he passed away in 2006, but I have a great friendship with the painter Javier Fernández de Molina. They were close friends, so through Javier I learned more about his work and his life. And a few years ago, his daughter Luna Lencero contacted me to take charge of producing some recordings that she wanted to make with unpublished texts by his father, with artists for whom he had written songs at the end of the last century. Due to a lack of money to carry it out, that project was frozen. But of course, Luna had handed me a fat wad of pages with letters and poems typed by Carlos, and I was drooling reading the material, I really enjoyed it. For several years the idea of setting any of those texts to music did not even cross my mind, but last year I dared, and the result was “De Balde”.
In “De Balde” itself, it is said that it is the point where someone from Badajoz can feel more comfortable: between the music of Latin America, that of Africa and flamenco, although it was conceived as a fandango. I don’t know if it has something to do with that topic of Extremadura as a land of conquerors. Do you feel that there is an innate impulse in your land to project itself outside, far from your natural borders?
I assume you mean the comments the label makes for each song on the promo sheet. It is true that it was written with the appropriate metric for a fandango, but hey, I think that these percussions with a ternary rhythm bring it closer to the tanguillos of Cádiz and other African and Cuban rhythms. As for what you say about whether there is an innate impulse in Badajoz or Extremadura to leave our borders, I think not. It is the need for work and economic precariousness that pushes most people to look for better conditions in other places, regardless of whether someone does it for love.
This links to a title like “Everybody Knows Somebody From Badajoz”: is it really so? Is it a way of saying that the majority of Badajoz leave?
Umm… I don’t know, I think it’s more of a way of saying that those of Badajoz can be as international as anyone else. As for whether the majority of Badajoz leave, here are the statistics: in the last seventy years more than a million people have emigrated from Extremadura, a similar number to the current population of the region.
In “The Foodie Appreciation Society” I also seem to detect the soul influence of Curtis Mayfield, but I don’t know if I’m right, as with Prince (it could be my distortion). Did it influence you?
It’s funny, I didn’t think about him while I was making the song, but Curtis is one of the teachers who has fed me the most and best, so I love that you tell me. For me the song has a nu-soul vibe, but more country style: for example, I do the clack of what would be the rim with a rociera reed, which has a special crunch.
“Now everyone asks me that… who is the Queen of Papatosina?”
“Am I Sad?” she is inspired by “the queen of Papatosina”, as close to the Guadiana as to the Mississippi. Who is it? Is he a fictional character?
Look, I had a session in a studio in Madrid to record backing vocals on some songs with Astrid Jones and Deborah Ayo, and I was missing the lyrics for the chorus of “Am I Sad?”. I was on my way on the bus, notebook in hand, trying to think of something… and the “Who? Ha!! But, really, haven’t you seen her? Quien? The Queen of Papatosina”. I liked it, I saw that it was funny and phonetically perfect for what the song needed, and when we recorded it in the studio it sounded great. Now everyone asks me that… who is the Queen of Papatosina? (laughs).
“What a good nap (I drool and to)” seems to vindicate the simple pleasure of a good nap, in times when we can afford it less and less frequently. Is it a vindication of the dolce far niente in these times so run over and absolutely overwhelmed with obligations that we live in?
I hadn’t thought of that, but now that you mention it, I think so.
“Come and Try” shows the influence of lovers rock. You are always associated with soul and African music, but not so much with the Caribbean. To what extent do you like or are influenced by genres like reggae and its surroundings?
25 years ago I had a reggae band called the Cocody Rockers, after the Alpha Blondy song. We did a lot of concerts, and he sang stuff by Gregory Isaacs, Burning Spear, Bob Marley, Jimmy London, Dennis Brown, Jimmy Cliff, Don Carlos… imagine if I like it and it has influenced me. In the reggae that was made in the seventies, the reggae roots – no dancehall or later rolls – I feel absolutely at home.
In “End of the world” you use autotune: did you want to reinforce the sense of humor of the song?
I guess so… (laughs). There was a producer working on another project in the same studio as me, and he was using auto tune all the time, to boot. Out of curiosity I asked him how the invention was handled, and to explain it to me we put the plug-in on a voice track of the song I was playing that day, which happened to be “End of the world”. He was telling me how the parameters were placed to achieve a more or less exaggerated effect, and when I listened to the song I liked how the voice gave the cante in two or three moments, with that robotic sound so characteristic of today’s songs. . So I ended up leaving it, I thought it was a humorous nod that suited the character of the song. The end of the world taken with a lot of joke. There are a lot of jateá people singing “We’re heading to the end of the world…”, but it is not clear if they are preaching the end of the world or if they are going to a pub called “End Of The World” to take another.
Tell me about working with Javi Mojave on percussion, Álvaro Fernández on bass, Rafa Prieto on guitar and Deborah Ayo, Astrid Jones, Miriam Solís and Fani Ela Nsue on vocals. Have you worked with them before?
Yes, I already knew all the staff. Alvaro Fernandez “Dr. Robelto”, the bassist, and Rafa Prieto, the guitarist, have played on all my records. And to a lesser extent, Javi Mojave on drums has also been on recordings since my first solo album. I met Deborah Ayo and Astrid Jones from a tour I did with a gospel group that I put together with John Lee Sanders, an American musician and singer living in Spain. As for Miriam Solís and Fani Ela Nsue, they were my live backup singers for two or three years, more than a decade ago.
What will your 2023 concerts be like? Will they be the ones with you?
The concerts? I hope they are numerous, in the broadest sense of the word. In principle, the band that will accompany me will be made up of Akin Elegbede on drums, Patrick Umoh on bass, Javi Mojave on percussion, Miguel Zamora on guitar, Frank David Santiuste on trumpet, Pablo Hernández on alto and tenor sax and Deborah Ayo in the choirs.
Have you ever felt identified with “Afro-soul”?
What is that? (laughs). Well, it’s a term that was coined by the press in its day… One ends up getting used to living with that.
Gecko Turner concert schedule
8:00 p.m. t.p.c.
10:00 p.m. 15€
