The Big Picture – devizine.com

In 1998 a pair of pigs escaped while being unloaded off a lorry at an abattoir in Malmesbury and were on the run for a week. The brother and sister pigs were dubbed the “The Tamworth Two,” during the huge media sensation. I didn’t remember this bizarre scoop, I was told about it in 2022 by London-based artist Gecko, on stage when Kieran of Sheer Music used to do gigs at Trowbridge Town Hall, as an introduction to his new song; it’s a track on his latest album, The Big Picture, due for release this Friday, 7th March……

If the story’s location, or the gig’s, is a feeble excuse for reviewing something not locally produced, as I vowed to uphold, neither matters; I’m willing to make an exception for something so uniquely satisfying as Gecko’s humble and sentimental outpourings. For in these days where the pop song template is generally concerned with how compassionate someone is in the sack, or how ignorant someone was in the sack, that’s why they dumped them and now both parties involved are agitated, Gecko breaks the mould so absolutely ingenious and inventively. His singing of a song about two pigs escaping their fate is surely proof!

And if I’m intending to pigeonhole such outpourings I must go broadly with hip hop, though nothing remains of the ostentatious machismo stereotype of the genre, quite the opposite here. I’d only mention it with a flux capacitor in hand, ready with Doc Brown to form an alternative timeline where the mixture of sounds to suit a cosmopolitan society still resides in hip hop, and the bullshit doesn’t.

For Gecko is a inoffensive dreamer, like the rare influential teacher who inspired a class, his songs drizzled with the utmost sentiments, and innocuous observations, sprinkled with humour. In which case his intelligent writing better fits indie rather than hip hop, his DIY stylistic choice of lo fi electronica reflects the contemporary, and will suit the mood of the narrative.

There’s three songs as examples to what I mean, before the one about the pigs. Geology opens with a retrospective thump, elucidating the overall theme of The Big Picture rests on environmental concerns, though nothing about Gecko’s delivery is vexed, rather calm and reflective. Darn it, it’s a good start, I expected it would be. Though the second track threw me, in general the humour is subtler than 2020’s Climbing Frame, the sentimental wordplay remains, and this one, It’s You (That I Find) parodies a conventional love song, using a jazzy beat and favouring singing over rap, as if Jamiroquai is a Gecko tribute!

Whereas the third tune, In This Tree, raps over a tropical or tribal bassline, Iko Iko fashion. Gecko always fits the sound’s style around the narrative, in this case a luxuriant rainforest, the next a racing acoustic guitar celebrating the Tamworth Two’s break for freedom, orchestrated for the uplifting sentiment, kazoo applied for tongue-in-cheek underscore!

If heartfelt sincerity is key throughout The Big Picture it builds in layers of emotion. The Dawn Chorus is a piano based ballad to the morning reflecting an awakening, like the most memorable primary school assembly you’d ever be blessed to be present at! The lounge-jazzy Family to Me follows, extending the positive attributes of friendship. It’s a lengthy journey of goodness, ten family-sized tunes. The Lost Boys beautifully tells a story of precisely what it says on the tin, and the sense of adventurousness is so overwhelming you assume it’s a memory, only using J. M. Barrie as an analogy.

Being The Tamworth Two has a backstory, I assume Bowling in Madison has too, but how Gecko makes the motivation of a bowling team so concentrated and purposeful, one can interpret it more vaguely, as the importance of any achievement. But if the run up to the finale has become the best possible saccharine vibe, the penultimate Take a Look Around is a formulated Gecko at his best, with the observational and uplifting rap sprinkled with humour. And lastly, The Universe is another lounge jazz parody which is the most perfect ending to a live show ever. It’s a goodbye message which incorporates every golden element to this most perfect album, the mindful study of deeper meaning to the everyday, pondering the stars above, and everything in between which nature gifts us with.

It is, in short, beautifully executed with the best ingredients, thoughtful prose and ingenious blending, the sum of which can only leave you spellbound. Do not delay, listen to it, tomorrow, your ears will thank you.