News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                     JANUARY  2006
 
QUANGO MUSIC GROUP TO RELEASE GECKO TURNER’S “GUAPAPASEA”  ON April 4, 2006
 
GECKO IS THE NEW GENERATION OF GLOBAL MUSICIANS
 
Los Angeles, CA - Spanish singer, songwriter, producer, guitarist and visionary Gecko Turner is part of a new generation of musicians whose imagination is unfettered by imaginary boundaries. His omnivorous appetite for the groove is evident on every track of Guapapasea!, his stunning debut album. His unique blend of jazz, blues, samba, reggae, hip hop, rock, Spanish and Arab music with songs in English and Spanish is unlike anything you’ve ever heard, and yet there’s something strangely familiar about it too.  There’s even a Spanish language reggae swing version of Subterranean Homesick Blues.
 
“I have a passion for blues music and everything that’s derived from it - soul, funk and jazz,” Gecko explains, “it’s been filling my soul from the first time I heard it and it comes out when I do my own music. In today’s world, the Internet makes it easier for everybody to have chances to get in contact with music from all over the world. There is a global culture emerging, not from the politicians but from the musicians and people who love music.”
 
It’s an album full of unexpected juxtapositions and deliriously mixed up beats, none perhaps more surprising to American ears than the track that opens the album, his Spanish language re-make/re-model of Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”. A tropical flute blows long floating notes over a swinging one-drop reggae rhythm. Then Gecko comes in with a sing/say vocal performance that maintains all the song’s wild internal rhymes, making a case for Dylan as an early rapper.  “[Subterranean] was Dylan’s first rock song,” Gecko says. “I was crazy about it since I was 15, so I played with the words and tried it with a reggae swing groove. The author, or his business people, approved it, so I was lucky.” Other standout tracks include “Rainbow Country,” another clever cover, this time of Marley’s “Roots, Rock, Reggae.” It’s a paired down track that blends flamenco guitar and hand clapping with an acoustic reggae groove.

Gecko sings and composes in English, Spanish and Portuguese and is backed by his 12 piece band, The Afrobeatnik Orchestra. Musicians include some of the best from the Afro-Cuban jazz scene including Ruben Dantas, Rodney Dassif and the great trumpet player Irapoam Freire. Guapapasea! has already won Spain’s Premio Extremadura a la Creacion, \given each year to writers and musicians who have created work that furthers the recognition of the Spanish language as a creative medium. The title track “40.000 (Guapa Pasea)” was recently used the Spanish movie “Obaba”, nominated for 2005’s Best Foreign Film. GUAPAPASEA! is being released by Quango Music Group.

About Quango Music Group:
Quango Music Group is a Los Angeles based tastemaker label, renowned for championing emerging sounds from around the globe. Quango helped bring acts like Zero 7, Koop, Talvin Singh and Kruder & Dorfmeister to the forefront of America¹s musical radar while creating innovative lifestyle compilations that are considered to be ahead of the curve. Quango continues to break new ground with an international roster of forward-thinking artists such as Bliss (Denmark), Cantoma (U.K.), Gecko Turner (Spain) and Bitter:Sweet (U.S.)