GECKØS (Howe Gelb + M. Ward + McKowski) Announce Debut LP

Earlier this year, Tucson, Arizona-based label PIAPTK released a 7-inch from a trio of critically acclaimed songwriters under the collective moniker, GECKØS. Comprised of M. Ward, Howe Gelb (of Giant Sand), and Mark McCausland (a.k.a. McKowski), the project’s first single followed a combo tour the members had concluded a couple of weeks prior. Would anything further come from this indie powerhouse? Based on the quality of what we heard, we definitely hoped so.

Howe Gelb, M. Ward, and McKowski had worked together and appeared on one another’s albums in the past, but they had never officially joined forces in quite this way. In fact, all of the members had never been in the same room before. The story goes that the three of them were in Tucson for a mutual friend’s wedding for which McKowski had been tasked with creating music for the couple’s first dance. Gelb and Ward joined him for an impromptu collab, resulting in the aptly named “Wedding Waltz” that now doubles as the opening track for their upcoming LP. The self-titled debut will be co-released by Org Music and PIAPTK on September 26th.

The spark was immediate with all three feeling a greater collaboration was in order. The biggest obstacle would be the physical distance between them, as Gelb is based in Tucson, Ward lives in Portland, Oregon, and McCausland currently resides in Omagh, Ireland. The effort was worth it and, after multiple international flights and sessions a full GECKØS album was born.

Gelb has positive views about working with his new partners and about collaboration, in general. “When you collaborate, others take it somewhere where you couldn’t have imagined at all. A new identity gets stamped on.”

Ward agrees, stating that there’s “just an excitement of two heads are better than one.” The Grammy-nominated producer/singer-songwriter is no stranger to collaboration, finding great success in projects like supergroup Monsters Of Folk (Ward, Jim James, Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis, and Will Johnson) and his long-running partnership with Zoey Deschanel as She And Him.

Most of the GECKØS tracks begin with McCausland providing the bones of the music, which Gelb and Ward then build around. The press release states that “Gelb and Ward both speak fondly of their time in Omagh — of the mystical quality of being in a place where you can go to a pub and people will just break out into song.“

M. Ward elaborates: “I’m very interested in Irish music and in older English music, and the ways that they tell stories, not just in music, but in all kinds of ways of expression. And I think that Mark’s songs do have a lot of Ireland in them.”

Perhaps of even greater influence, McCausland speaks specifically of the Boneyard, a place that he refers to as “a semi-fictional world that half exists.” In a physical sense, the Boneyard is the name of the record shop and studio he owns in his small town of Omagh, but he also writes a newspaper column that chronicles “musings from the realm’s hallucinatory happenings.” As McCausland explains it, “It kind of has one foot in reality and one foot in surreality.”

Further solidifying this as an international effort, songs like “Lo Hice” and “El Techno,” which feature Ward on lead vocals, find him singing in Spanish for the first time in his career. Although he grew up with Mexican grandparents speaking the language in the house, Ward refers to his version as “a sort of Spanglish.“

Preorders for the LP are currently available through Org Music on digital and physical formats, including red and limited-edition gold metallic vinyl.

You can check out the track “El Techno” below, followed by a live performance of “Dance Of The Gecko” from when the trio played Teatro CajaGranada in Granada, Spain, back in May.