Banco De Gaia

Drawn into electronic music by the surge of Britain’s acid house scene toward the end of the 1980s, Toby Marks charted his own course under the Banco de Gaia name. His productions wove Eastern and Arabic motifs together with samples drawn from similarly distant locales, all anchored by ambient-dub grooves. In the opening years of the 1990s he issued a series of cassette-only recordings circulated via the Planet Dog collective of clubs and artists. Once Planet Dog evolved into a proper label—later home to Eat Static and Timeshard—Banco de Gaia made its first appearance on disc with the Desert Wind EP in November 1993. Early the next year Marks delivered his debut full-length album, Maya. The 1995 release Last Train to Lhasa reflected his focus on the situation in occupied Tibet. A live document from the following year, Live at Glastonbury, captured a rare concert performance, after which Big Men Cry surfaced in 1997 and The Magical Sounds of Banco de Gaia arrived two years later. Marks resurfaced in late 2000 with Igizeh on Six Degrees Records, the imprint he continued with for both 2004’s You Are Here and 2006’s Farewell Ferengistan.