Hello, another Sundaze in the spotlight a former busker entertaining portugeese tourists but his birthtown London's music scene call had him return to take a serious dip into the music scene and within 3 years he released his first albums on cassette. Toby Marks aka Banco De Gaia's ambient dub created his own niche as you you can find out here..N'joy
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In 1978, Marks began his musical career as a drummer in a heavy metal band. Marks moved to Portugal in 1986 and played Beatles music for tourists. He first delved into electronic music in 1989, when he bought a digital sampler. The first tune he recorded on it was called "Maxwell House."
Inspired to enter the field of electronic music by Britain's acid house explosion of the late '80s, Toby Marks took quite a different spin on electronica with his recordings as Banco de Gaia, introducing elements of Eastern and Arabic music, sampling similarly exotic sources, and tying the whole to ambient-dub rhythms. Marks began releasing cassette-only albums in the early '90s, distributed through a network of clubs and artists known as Planet Dog. These excellent self-produced albums Medium and (in 1992) Freeform Flutes And Fading Tibetans. His unique and evocative blend of electronica with world-music styles earned him a fast-growing and loyal live following.
When Planet Dog became a record label as well (later the home of Eat Static and Timeshard), Banco de Gaia debuted on disc with the Desert Wind EP, released in November 1993. Early the following year, Marks released his first much acclaimed album, Maya. Maya featured studio versions of many of the tracks that had become the mainstay of Banco de Gaia's live sets and consequently was an immediate hit with his growing fan-base. The Heliopolis EP was also released in 1994, a track from which appeared on Sasha and Digweed's ground-breaking Northern Exposure compilation the next year.
After a big success of the debut album Maya and a European tour with Transglobal Underground Toby Marks travelled the world collecting inspirations. He joined The Tibet Support Group, a part of International Tibet Independence Movement. As a response to the decision to build the Qingzang railway between the cities of Xining and the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, in 1995 Marks recorded a 12-minute long track with looped chants from Tibet. It soon appeared to be a start for the whole project, eventually creating a new album. As Marks said, the compositions were made as a result of political and human sensitivity
Banco's Last Train To Lhasa album collected huge critical acclaim across Europe as well as the US and Canada. The skilful blend of sounds on Last Train To Lhasa produced a timeless release that was one of the 'must have' albums of that year and limited edition versions of the release (featuring bonus mixes) now change hands for huge sums on the internet.
Live At Glastonbury was released in 1996. Featuring a storming set recorded in front of a large and enthusiastic crowd at the Glastonbury Festival in 1995, the album consolidated what had been a period of huge growth in Banco de Gaia's standing within the dance community and gave Toby a breathing space to work on his next studio album.
The result, Big Men Cry, released in 1997 was a deep and very personal album featuring many timeless and deeply moving tunes. The simultaneous release of Big Men Cry both across Europe and in the US, gave Toby the opportunity to completely revamp what had up till then, been a one-man live show. His already massive reputation for stunning live performances was enhanced by the creation of a 5 piece band to enable Banco de Gaia to perform Drunk As A Monk as 'live' as possible. band that included Ted Duggan (drums), Ashley Hopkins (bass), Larry Whelan (wind synth, saxophone and ethnic flutes), and Gary Spacey-Foot (percussion and saxophones). Enhanced with a specially designed lightshow, the band toured the US and much of Europe over the next year, securing a reputation for quality music that has endured to this day.The band reduced in number to just Marks, Duggan, and Hopkins in 1999, and then just Marks and Duggan from 2000 until 2003; when Marks went back to being a solo artist.
Banco de Gaia parted company with Planet Dog Records in 1998 and went on to set up his own Disco Gecko label through which he has released The Magical Sounds of Banco de Gaia two years later. In late 2000, Marks returned with Igizeh through Six Degrees Records, a label with which he decided to stay for 2004's You Are Here and 2006's Farewell Ferengistan. In 2009 Banco released Memories Dreams Reflections featuring an superb cover of Pink Floyd's "Echoes"
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While claiming that his musical pseudonym is named after both Benito Mussolini's homosexual lover and the most boring opera ever made, Toby Marks makes music that's actually quite serious, full of abstract ambience and era-jumping Eastern and Western experimentation. Maya offers the strongest recollection of acid house of anything in his discography, with light, airy breakbeats and endlessly pleasant pianos rippling against a large backdrop of Asian influences.
Banco de Gaia - Maya> (flac 446mb)
01 Heliopolis 7:24
02 Mafich Arabi 8:02
03 Sunspot 6:59
04 Gamelah (Dub 3) 6:37
05 Qurna (Mister Christian On The Decks) 9:16
06 Sheesha 7:45
07 Lai Lah (V1.∞) 7:31
08 Shanti (Red With White Spots Edit) 11:13
09 Maya 7:48
Banco de Gaia - Maya> (ogg 161mb)
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This double-disc concept album concerns the commercial invasion of Tibet by Chinese merchants hoping to overrun the peaceful country. Despite some watered-down beats, Toby Marks weaves Eastern-rhythms and futuristic synth quite well over both uptempo and ambient tracks.
Banco de Gaia - Last Train To Lhasa (cd1) > (flac 373mb)
01 Last Train To Lhasa 11:43
02 Kuos 6:56
03 China (Clouds Not Mountains) 7:30
04 Amber 7:34
05 Kincajou 6:47
06 White Paint 6:06
07 887 (Structure) 14:17
Banco de Gaia - Last Train To Lhasa (cd1) (ogg 142mb)
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Banco de Gaia - Last Train To Lhasa (cd2)> (flac 335mb)
01 Kuos (Gnomes Mix) 11:19
02 Kincajou (Duck! Asteroid) 36:09
03 Eagle (Small Steppa Mix) 12:33
Banco de Gaia - Last Train To Lhasa (cd2) (ogg 142mb)
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Toby Marks began to move away from the preconceptions of a Banco de Gaia project with 1997's Big Men Cry. While it has the ambient dub bent of his previous work, the album expands to include tribal drumming and a lot of live instrumentation, organized and tweaked to perfection by Marks' mature studio capabilities.
Banco de Gaia - Big Men Cry (flac 409mb)
01 Drippy 8:59
02 Celestine 12:39
03 Drunk As A Monk 9:27
04 Big Men Cry 6:11
05 Gates Does Windows 0:38
06 One Billion Miles Out 10:38
07 Starstation Earth 19:38
Banco de Gaia - Big Men Cry (ogg 160mb)
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