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Geographically, Gone Down South is arguable (depending where you are currently located) as the album was recorded in London, Madrid, Texas, California and Extremadura (that’s Western Spain.to you and me). On the other hand, the music is another matter.

The opener ‘Truly’ is sunny piece of Motown influenced downtempo soul-funk with a classy Tex-Mex Herb Albert style trumpet solo.

When I go down south, I wanna be at least in Mexico City, if not South America but hopefully around Brazil at least. And ‘Cuanta Suerte’ is all the Afro Cuban Latin that I’d want from a night on the Havana tiles (the track is actually made by the backing vocals of the Lovemonk All Star, Gene Garcia) but it’s a track to drop as it’s slightly leftfield.

So now we’re into this, there’s some tropical jungle “Velvet Underground influenced” oddness that’s ‘So Sweet’ (nice 60s organ and trumpet which doesn’t really hang with calypso groove - there’s a killer remix in there somewhere?) and ‘Tea Time’ is not a cucumber sandwich as GT funks on down as if Rufus Thomas is in the house (but actually it’s Extremaduran rapper Isayah Thomas).

The heart of this album is Afro-influenced ‘Ámame, Mìmame’ (that’s got a hung of swamp dog about it), ‘You Can’t Own Me’ (that’s been reggae-rap-ified) and ‘Mbira Bira’ (that’s beautifully Ladysmithed).

Not content with that, ‘Holly Hollywood’ sound like the Black Seeds with steel drum band doing a funk tune but it’s when Irapoan Freire gets on his trumpet (like ‘Lets Stay Tonight’) that it all hots up.

‘The Love Monk’ is another Freire feature as they break-out Gecko style (and on the right day, this is the stand-out track on the album) if it’s not he Stevie Wonder-horn-Clavinet combo-ed ‘When I Woke Up’.

And to paraphrase Zeljko Kerleta on his latest show, “the blues suck” as does the Randy Newman-esque title track which could have been good and you’d have thought deserved more than a mere two minutes.

That apart, it’s been four years since his last album Chandalismo Illustrado and this laid back style and travels have culminated in this new 12 track album that’s so summer cool, I’m at a loss why it’s coming out now. I suppose it’s always summer down south and this album is certainly sunny. Forget the pseudo Bruce Springstein look and enjoy the horn (and more).

Reviewed: Gecko Turner - Gone Down South (Love Monk) Cat. No. Release date: 17th September 2010
1. Truly (4:02)
2. Cuanta Suerta (5:25)
3. So Sweet (4:02)
4. Tea Time (2:54)
5. Ámame, Mìmame (3:31)
6. You Can’t Own Me (3:49)
7. Mbira Bira (2:56)
8. Holly Hollywood (3:16)
9. Let’s Say Tonight (3:15)
10. The Love Monk (4:00)
11. When I Woke Up (4:14)
12. Gone Down South (1:55)

Links:
www.geckoturner.com
www.lovemonk.net
myspace.com/lovemonk