Banco de Gaia 'Farewell Ferengistan'
Toby Marks under the pseudonym Banco De Gaia has spent most of his career focusing on issues that he finds bewildering by expressing his thoughts and observations through music. The electronic musings of an ‘abstract techno/dance’ composer are not traditionally associated with an impassioned political polemic or works of merit and depth. However, his critically acclaimed 1995 album Last Train To Lhasa was written to highlight the plight of the Tibetan people and successfully mixed electronica with a braver vision, although Banco de Gaia himself has lost count of the number of times people have told him that ‘dance and politics’ just don’t mix. There are no ‘themes’ in dance music, just beats and hooks etc.
Fast-forward to 2006 and over a decade of questioning and consistently brilliant albums under the bridge later and here we are facing the same joyfully unsettling creature. Farewell Ferengistan captures the spirit and mood of Last Train To Lhasa but this time instead of being concerned with the remote tribes of Shangri-la, Banco de Gaia’s concerns are much closer to home: what are we doing to ourselves? Where is our materialism taking us, would it not be wise to consider our position? “Ferengistan” is a word of uncertain origin, it could be Arabic, German, Byzantine or Greek. In Central Asia, its common meaning is as a reference to the home of Westerners and Caucasians. It has connotations of greed, materialism and untrustworthiness. So by saying “Farewell Ferengistan,” Banco is noting the decline of the era of the prospector, the banker, the investor, the shareholder and the structures and systems of the corporate world. We must all in the end face the fact that commerce has consistently been doing ‘it’ on its own doorstep and that we cannot continue the way we have been because ultimately we are running out of resources and people to steal from.
Farewell Ferengistan is an album about humanity’s global predicament. After a decade and a half of music making it is great to see that Banco de Gaia remains as brave, experimental and willfully on his own path as ever. Toby Marks is someone who has influenced many musicians. In the U.S. particularly and across Europe, Banco de Gaia is respected for the innovator that he is for making records of consistent beauty and quality. The tone of Farewell Ferengistan turns mellow and reflective. “Saturn Return” takes the listener on a widescreen space shuttle launch to the outer planets in the company of Steve Reich and Terry Riley, then deposits us on the set of a spaghetti western version of 2001-esque “Flow My Tears, The Android Wept” where a lonesome computer sings a 17th century ballad to a flamenco dub accompaniment. The mood remains ambient as an English pastoral landscape merges with Himalayan melodies in”White Man’s Burden” until submitting to the relentless march of progress and percussion. The hint of menace brings listeners back down to earth in time to be washed clean by the sublime vocal harmonies and timeless truth of “We All Know The Truth (You Have God),” the perfect exit music for this movie.
