Banco De Gaia - Maya

Got to disagree slightly with the previous reviwer here.

I only discovered this album recently and yes it does sound very 90's... But whats wrong with that? This album has got much more of a real organic deep vibe than alot of the over processed crap thats churned out today.

A great album for chilling to or as background music.

Takes you on a nice mystic journey.

The second track (Mafich Arabi)always get me going and hooks me up to enjoy the rest of the album, A fun Tribal chant with a funky beat.

If you are partial to a bit of ambient, world music, dub or just oldskool then make sure you check this one out.

Am tempted to track down some of their other stuff for a listen and might have to get this on vinyl too.

_Maya_, Toby Marks' first full-length offering as Banco de Gaia, bears all the unfortunate hallmarks of mid-90s techno, back when ambient dub roamed the earth. Marks added his voice to the renaissance of ethnic-sample techno with "Heliopolis," which uses the same Dead Can Dance riff as the Future Sound of London's classic "Papua New Guinea," but the overall effort seems dated. On _Maya_, Marks focuses primarily on the Middle East (despite the South American title), and while there's nothing here that calls for jihad, neither are any of the tracks particularly inspiring. Indeed, "Mafich Arabi" suffers from a slight case of cheesiness, a symptom that reappears in the electric guitar and dull samples of the title track. If anything, this album is more of a chill-out test run, a first try that would only lead to better things.

Take no notice of the reviewer from november 2004 and and take it from me that if you like shpongle or orbital or any instrumental music with a bit of life in it as well as some substance then this is the stuff for you. I bought it back in 1994 and still listen to it now and constantly see tracks from it on compilation cd's. I also like a lot of plaid autechre black dog and boards of canada and this album is right up there with those on my playlists.

I was never a fan of Banco de Gaia. While Toby Marks might very well have been one of the first producers to make electronic music with a "world music" angle, most of his releases are underwhelming and bland, and the whole "ethno-techno" scene suceeded only in showing that artists like Loop Guru were worryingly close to the insipid chart fodder of Enigma and Deep Forest. "Maya" is ten years old now and sounds like it (i.e. more 90's than Mike Flowers Pops, re-runs of Seinfeld and "Generation X" articles in newspapers put together), and tracks that could have been quite good (like "Qurna") are ruined by Marks' penchant for flat/unprocessed synth sounds and dull, pedestrian beat programming. This genre isn't a bad idea per se (if you want something better than this, try Makyo or Toirés), so it's a bit of a shame that it was absorbed by the repulsive world of Buddha Bar-type compilations, coffee shops, clueless crusties and divorced housewives looking for something "exotic". But unfortunately, that's where the majority of "Maya" belongs.