Toby Marks is one of the UK’s leading electronic musicians. Born in South London in 1964, he formed Banco De Gaia with Andy Guthrie, who left for other things. Marks’ adventures in electronic music began in 1989, when he bought a sampler and recorded “Maxwell House”. He is now recognised as one of the world’s leading exponents of globally inspired electronica with a distinctive style. In 1994 he released his first studio album, the Mercury Music Prize-nominated “Maya”, on Planet Dog records. This was followed in 1995 by the critically-acclaimed “Last Train to Lhasa”. Both albums reached number one on the UK’s independent charts. Since then Banco de Gaia has continued releasing albums, most recently FAREWELL FERENGISTAN. This interview is a little old now we spoke in 2006, but there’s still some interesting bits and pieces there, especially as this never appeared online, only in print.
Q: When did you realise you wanted to make music?
A: I can’t remember wanting to do anything else. Sometimes I wish I did something else to earn money, so I could play music for itself.
Q: What was the first record you bought?
A: I remember asking my Mum to buying me Top of the Tots. Later I started buying Top of the Pops albums – cover versions – it took years to understand why they sounded different on radio,
Q: Why does music matter?
A: There’s several answers to that. The first is the serious highbrow answer. The Chinese saw it as the bridge between man and the gods. A less serious answer – it’s always been an antidote to the drudgery of human existence. For some, making music is a way to articulate what they can’t say. There’s a million reasons.
Q: Digital music – good or bad? Continue reading →
Much respected musician, Banco De Gaia, (Toby Marks) will release new album, ‘Memories, Dreams, Reflections’, internationally on September 18 (Sept. 22 in North America), and will be offering streaming previews of all the tracks from the artist’s web site.
