Children Of The Bong - Sirius Sounds

Planet Dog/Mammoth Records: 1995/1996

In the great Electronic Music Encyclopedia, the chapter on “What Could Have Been...?” is replete with artists, acts, producers, and projects that never saw their fulfilled potential. In a psychedelic scene with many flash-in-the-pan names and one-and-done wonders, Children Of The Bong's story always felt particularly cruel. A promise of something truly unique and remarkable, cut entirely too short due to circumstances utterly out of their control. Misters Henry and Goganian basically created psy dub years before it ever caught on!

I'll grant there were already tunes on the downtempo side of things within the psy scene, but much of it seemed in flux with already existing genres - ambient dub, world beat, acid breaks, goa trance, and so on. It took a true all-star act like Shpongle (re: Simon Posford and Raja Ram) to essentially set the terms and tropes of what psy dub would go on to entail. Yet for all the groundbreaking ideas those two were credited with, Children Of The Bong got there first, and quite possibly were even more intuitive with said ideas involving improvised analogue gear, as evidenced on their lone album, Sirius Sounds.

All those wiggly, squiggly, free-flowing trippy-drippy sounds psy dub is so often associated with are in full effect here. Hell, there's a track titled Squigglasonica, itself something of a spiritual successor to Ionospheric State (which I touched upon in Transmissions From Planet Dog). Funky, hip-shakin' rhythms coupled with delightfully fun knob twiddling on those wormy acid leads, and how could you not think of a title more appropriate?

These tracks are more representative of the sort of live jams Rob and Daniel would do, but they made room for more traditional takes on psychedelic world beat too. Well, about as traditional as anyone out of the Megadog scene would go, and even then throwing in their wildly warped variations of it. Interface Reality may be comparatively chill, but that don't mean the acid doesn't get a good workout along the way. The Veil has the sort of po-faced spiritual samples coupled with tongue-in-cheek low-ridin' basslines that reminds everyone not to take this scene too seriously. Underwater Dub gets about as deep into the reggae dub side of things as you could possibly go with this album, while Life On Planet Earth... actually sounds like a fairly typical spaced-out psy-dub track, until you remember it came out years before that was really a thing.

Okay, so clearly Children Of The Bong were 'ahead of their time', and all that. Why are they not regarded in the same breath as that scene's major players, then? Two reasons, one clearly being they broke up shortly after Sirius Sounds came out, Rob Henry carrying on with different music after. The second is just bad label luck, Planet Dog/Ultimate already showing strains of mismanagement with their signed acts. Fortunately, tales of the Bong continued to linger over the ages, and Sirius Sounds has seen some expanded re-issues recently. No excuses for overlooking this album any longer then.

Banco de Gaia - Big Men Cry

Mammoth Records: 1997

Though I place Big Men Cry at the tippy-top of Banco de Gaia albums, if I were to recommend a record for a first-timer, this would be, like, second-to-last. For this is an album that doesn't so much represent Banco as a whole, but rather the bleeding edge of what Banco is capable of.

Even by Last Train To Lhasa, it was clear the classic ambient dub and progressive house style Toby made hay from was tiring out, needing a whole second disc to indulge himself away from dance music's rules. Possibly emboldened by the 'live' nature of those sessions, plus needing to 'evolve or die' in the rapidly mutating scene that was '90s electronica', Toby decided it was time to get the old band back together. Or start up a new band. Get more live instruments into his gigs, is what I'm saying.

And to do that, his approach to songcraft had to completely change, allowing for more freeform flow in his jams than relying on standard acid house loops and samples. Oh, there was still that too, but tracks Drippy and Drunk As A Monk feel far looser than Banco tunes of old, adaptable to musicians playing them rather than being reliant on machines. Meanwhile, Celestine tries the same trick with ambient dub, but despite some wonderful saxophone tooting from Pink Floyd alum Dick Parry, is still a bit stiff compared to the other two. Marks would iron out those kinks in follow-up albums though, and hasn't looked back since.

Still, that wasn't enough to shake Toby out of the doldrums he was feeling around this time. So down he was that he made one of his all-time saddest songs in the titular track, all forlorn strings and beautifully weepy melodies, never again so bare heart-wrenching emotions put to song. Sometimes though, even nakedly laying out one's soul isn't enough. Sometimes you need to escape everything, even if it's One Billion Miles Out, the great beyond and grandeur of the cosmos, unsullied by the hand of man. Banco had ventured into the cosmic realm before, but never in such a manner that you fear its unfathomable desolation.

Yet your gaze settles upon a lone star freighter, quietly drifting in the emptiness, its cargo unknown as it moves through the interstellar medium. Eventually it pulls into Starstation Earth for refuelling and a greasy meal, a real dive of a 'trucker's stop', your only company some droids and a sad-sack singing old country croons from a jukebox. Can't stay admiring the scenery though, as it's back to the stars, taking off at hyperspeed and disappearing into the great beyond before Toby quite literally closes the gate on the album (have I mentioned all the pronounced field recordings yet?).

Banco's music has always been quite 'visual', but Big Men Cry is downright cinematic compared to his larger body of work, pulling you into other worlds well beyond your crusty dance floors. It's emotional escapism music at its finest.

Various - Transmissions From The Planet Dog

Mammoth Records: 1995

Planet Dog was doing well for itself within their motherland. Legendary festivals, highly touted roster of genre-bending musicians, nods of approval from famed DJs like Sasha and John Peel. Finding a Stateside distributor was inevitable, but going with Mammoth Records was an odd choice. The print out of Carrboro, North Carolina was primarily a rock outlet, dealing with alternative, industrial, and indie. Some of their more successful acts included Machines Of Loving Grace, Seven Mary Three, Squirrel Nut Zipper, Kill Creek, Vanilla Trainwreck, and The Bats. I’m sure they are all perfectly wonderful bands in perfectly wonderful scenes, but yeah, drawing a big ol’ blank on most of these. But then, I’m sure most Americans were drawing big ol’ blanks on names like Eat Static and Banco de Gaia, so to help their Planet Dog chums from across the Atlantic, Mammoth released this double-disc primer featuring the label’s biggest acts (re: those who’d released a full LP).

As such, CD1 of Transmissions From The Planet Dog is hopelessly redundant where my own collection is concerned. Essentially the Eat Static/Banco showcase, it borrows three tracks from Abduction, two from Implant, three from Maya, plus a remix of Qurna that was used in most live versions of the song anyway. They didn’t pluck the best Maya tracks either, and though I don’t have Eat Static’s Implant, the two tracks they have here didn’t inspire me to rush out for that record. But hey, if you need a cheat-sheet of both early careers, this CD does a decent job.

For my money though, the highlight is CD2, where Timeshard and Children Of The Bong get to strut their stuff. Granted, the same problem remains, in that if you already have the albums from which these tracks came from, it’s another wholly redundant collection of tunes. Hell, half of Timeshard’s debut album is on here! On the other hand, Children Of The Bong’s contributions are pretty rare for the three tracks you get, one coming from an early tape-only release, and another found on an obscure, non-Feed Your Head Planet Dog compilation.

Even so, considering both Timeshard and Children Of The Bong didn’t last much longer beyond the compilation, their back-catalog grew rather difficult to procure, making Transmissions From The Planet Dog one of the few places you could find their music anymore. And believe me, these guys are worth checking out if you fancy yourself the psychedelic side of electronic music. This is psy dub before the genre really had much demarcation or boundaries for itself, fearless in whatever sounds, instruments, and influences were thrown into the pie. Electro rhythms in acid-drenched Ionospheric State? Go for it! Epic sojourns of mystic lands across the shores of Space Goa? Crystal Oscillations got yo’ back! Ultra spliff haze as dubbed out in Symbol I? Groovy, man. Woozy acid-dub while jamming with Ravi and Jimi? Only with Oracle. Considering how polished psy dub turned after the millennium, it’s refreshing hearing some so deliciously crusty.

Various - Tranced Out And Dreaming

Planet Dog/Mammoth: 1997

Where could Planet Dog have gone had they survived through the new millennium? The tie-in for Club Dog and Megadog parties weren’t exactly gunning for dance music dominance, content in letting other labels claim the big acts and dominate the scene. Yet those half-dozen names they signed, they made an undeniable mark on the psychedelic side of ‘90s electronic jams, gaining plenty of critical plaudits in the process. Planet Dog came across as a label that nurtured the talent they gathered, even if most of them weren’t long for this world (come back to us, Children of The Bong!). Would another unique, unheralded name have graced our ears thanks to Planet Dog’s finger the scene’s pulse? Could they continue forging their own path when homogeny became the commercially viable option? Might they have compromised their identity to stay afloat, jumping on trends and bandwagons before collapsing regardless? Ugh, that’s bleak. Let’s try Alternate Earth #2,622,673 instead, where Planet Earth became literal Planet Dog. Snoop Dogg is Canine Overlord.

But wait, maybe we have a tantalizing little look-see into one of those more practical possibilities, this here CD called Tranced Out And Dreaming. First though, that cover art. I don’t know what the Doggie folk were thinking with it, looking all sorts of cartoony and crummy. If you didn’t know the pedigree behind the compilation, you’d swear this was some chintzy world beat or New Age bollocks. Hey, maybe that’s why the label folded the year after: bad marketing! No, no, it was the demise of parent label Ultimate, ‘tis all.

Anyhow, Tranced Out And Dreaming is Planet Dog’s stab at a trance CD, as was a popular trend in 1997-o-dickety. The label had ties with the genre, Eat Static already a mainstay on the psy trance circuit, but generally skewed towards the downbeat, world beat, trippy beat, and dub beat. Uptempo goa and progressive trance were not on their radar, and even with this compilation on the market, that argument still holds true. Only Tony Hunt, who has three tracks on this nine-tracker (Katouka, Spectral, and Ionosphere), offers the most traditional of trance tropes, what with high-octane beats, soaring synths, and ethnic chants. While these cuts instantly won me over back in my trancecracker youth, I find them rather obvious and rote these days, especially compared to the other tunes here.

The opening few tracks are decent enough stabs at trippy, acid techno, but the back-half of this CD offers some absolutely mint dub action. Blissy Psilodub from Transequence will give your bassbins a proper workout, while slow groover Drift (Fruit Mix) from O.V.N.I. will have you floating through the cosmos as expertly as any psy-dub offering of the era. Astronomix’ La Danseuse Obsédante is a perfect example of the ‘technorganic’ style Planet Dog made famous, while Feel’s Nyango gets back to some chugging progressive house action on that ethnic tip. Methinks a label forgot what a ‘trance’ compilation was supposed to sound like by the end. Or not. *wink*

Banco de Gaia - Maya (Original TC Review)

Mammoth Records: 1994

(2014 Update:
Bleagh, another super-duper long review from the year 2006. My God, how many of these did I write? True, it was the first proper opportunity I got at splurging my Banco de Gaia knowledge for TranceCritic, but given how many Banco albums I've gone over for this blog now (8 albums and 2 singles!), the opening few paragraphs are incredibly redundant.

What will make this review even more redundant is the fact a limited 20th Anniversary edition of Maya's due to come out this week. Which I've obviously gone and ordered for myself. This isn't as fanboyish as it seems, since it's a triple-disc set (!!) full of unreleased remixes and live takes, plus my original copy of Maya had a digital defect on the final track anyway. At least with this old review up, I don't have to talk about the main album details. I mean, with how much I wrote here, what else is left to say?)


IN BRIEF: Early music from the World Bank.

[The opening paragraph contained unnecessary information, so I've removed it]

Of course, my enjoyment of Banco de Gaia shouldn’t be any secret to steady readers of TranceCritic. I’ve continuously name-dropped him all over the place, and for good reason: Marks’ music has had a significant influence on my tastes over the years. From the very moment I heard Shanti some dozen years ago (a different version, mind, not the one here), I was hooked for life. All those whom I exposed Banco tracks to often came to my same conclusion: the music from the World Bank was entirely in a class of its own, impossible to pigeonhole, and always captivating.

Ah yes, I can see your ‘Fanboy Warning’ alarms already flashing. Perhaps this is why I’ve held off covering any Banco releases for so long. Although we’ll never try to hide the fact any review of music will have some subjectivity, we still try to maintain an element of objectivity as far as our conscience allows. While I’d love to give Maya glowing praise for being a Banco release, the music critic in me can hear the faults and inconsistencies; if we’re to maintain our credibility, I’m going to have to point these out. But before I do that, a brief history leading up to this album (don’t worry, it’s relevant).

Before Maya, Marks was getting known through his association with the Megadog syndicate, often touring along with the likes of Eat Static. He did release a few cassette albums during those years but none could see official distribution due to many uncleared samples. However, this didn’t stop the Banco project from getting tapped for songs to be featured on Beyond’s seminal Ambient Dub series, where Marks’ profile grew exponentially. A full-length was inevitable and, in 1994, it came to pass.

But which audience was Marks to aim for? The Megadog partiers? The fans of his Ambient Dub contributions? Or should he shoot for a broader audience with the larger distribution now available? Maya has a feeling about it that seems Marks was attempting to please all parties involved. As is often the case in this situation, the end result can feel a bit disjointed and uncertain.

Opening track Heliopolis is as indicative of this as any. True, the sweeping vocal samples and exotic atmosphere is definitely a Banco trademark, but everything else comes off flat. The rhythm doesn’t have enough drive to it, and the squelchy arpeggiating synth sounds under-produced for a track where other attributes shine.

Mafich Arabi, one of the few tape-only tracks to be rescued, also has some problems, but at least the rhythm makes up for it in this case. Pretty much a straight-forward funky tribal stompfest, an assortment of drum loops beat away as chants and Middle-Eastern hooks accompany them. The chants are wonderful, easily lodging in your head so you can’t help but join in. The hooks, though, are a bit suspect. I don’t mind them, but if Middle-Eastern melodies aren’t your game, even an infectious rhythm and chant may have trouble drawing you in for the duration.

The dubby, groovy Sunspot is a pleasant diversion, but the violin solo in the middle may be a turnoff, as it sounds like it was thrown in just for the fun of it (really, Marks is good for one of these moments in every album). However, I can find no fault in Gamelah’s approach to trance. It isn’t a high-tempo song, but it doesn’t need to be. The tribal rhythms are brisk enough to groove to, and the combination of chants and spacey, sweeping synths is an effective pairing. Definitely one for the outdoor gatherings.

Still, the ambient dub material was where Banco garnered a large chunk of fans at this point, so Marks treats them to a mellow, dubbed-out bit of bliss with Qurna. Synthy pad washes, tranquil grooves, seaside sound effects, and warm melodies all come together to form a sonic treat for you to lie back to.

The final stretch mostly contains tracks from the Beyond compilations... after a fashion: Lai Lah and Shanti were both remixed for Maya.

Sheesha comes first though. I’ve never been able to grasp what Marks was shooting for in this track. The intro of it shows promise, as many layers of deep, dubby sound effects, samples, and burbly electronics are gradually added. Once the rhythm kicks in though, the plot seems lost. Nothing quite melds together like you’d think it could, and Sheesha ends up wandering aimlessly despite the strengths of the individual components.

Lai Lah, on the other hand, works brilliantly despite all the elements sounding a bit chaotic. Chalk it up to a great rhythm (probably the best on here) and some crafty sample work. A breakdown allows just the strumming samples to play with a recording of a couple’s argument underneath. As this goes on, a mournful synth melody gradually grows in prominence, finally capping off at the end of the argument before being thrust right back into the rhythm. Now that’s a unique breakdown and build!

What Marks does with Shanti may be hit or miss with listeners, as he takes the track into a kind of jam-band excursion. Each element - bassline, rhythms, vocal chants, dubby keyboards, warm pads - gets a chance to play on their own before segueing into the next while white-noise effects pulse in the background. I can see this not being all that interesting if you like your songs focused and compact, but I quite like this. Besides, as far as dubby noodling goes, this is still a relatively coherent go at it. And when the pads do make their appearance towards the end of the Shanti? Yeah... magic.

Finally we end on Maya, a collaboration with Andy Guthrie. Here, Marks gets to show off some of his prog-rock influences as he breaks out the guitar while twinkly bells and all the usual exotic soundscapes fill in the atmosphere. For what it is, this is a decent enough track, and probably one of the more unique ones in this early stage of the Banco life; it’s certainly closer in sound to current offerings than most of what’s been heard on this album.

And that’s probably something to keep in mind should you be new to Maya (the album, that is... damn, but is it ever annoying having title tracks at the end sometimes). If you got into Banco de Gaia after Marks made the project into a fully fleshed-out band, the tracks on offer here seem very simple in comparison - which, truthfully, they are. For the most part, you can hear Marks still playing by dance music’s rules, and it would be another couple years before his song-writing would find the confidence to do things his own way.

Despite this shortcoming, there is gold to be found underneath the rough edges. Some of the melodies on offer are wonderful to behold, and Marks had nailed the ambient dub template almost from the get-go. Maya may not be the most enduring Banco de Gaia album but fans of the project will still find little things about it that will keep them coming back to listen to again and again.

Banco de Gaia - Live At Glastonbury

Mammoth Records: 1996

Much better. Much, much better! Maybe it's the Glastonbury vibe capturing these acts at their best; they sure were the strongest recordings from The Orb's live compilation (hard to call Live 93 a proper album). So if you're a young EDM chap thinking of releasing a live album, better make it a gig from the famous British festival.

Truth be told, I was incredibly hesitant to pick this up at first glance. It’d only been a few months since I’d bought Banco de Gaia’s first two CDs, thus I was still in that ‘eh, not as good as I hoped’ mindset regarding Last Train To Lhasa. Now here’s another CD containing most of Lhasa, plus Mafich Arabi and Heliopolis, another pair of tunes I was lukewarm over as heard on Maya (I was dead-set on believing Toby Marks produced worldly ambient dub and nothing but). Still, what’s that last track, Data Inadequate? Never heard that one on either album, nor was it on the Ambient Dub series. Is it a new song? Nah, probably some live dialog; maybe a corny joke that the show’s over, therefore has inadequate data to carry on. Yeah, that’s it.

Anyhow, I bought Live At Glastonbury regardless, because that’s what you do when you find a new musical love. And sure enough, once the CD played through, my hesitations over its merits quickly dissipated. The crowd’s properly present, their cheers never overwhelming the music while placing you among the mass. A few technical hiccups with the opener Last Train To Lhasa aside, the sound’s clear and full, with enough open air resonance giving the tracks fresh vitality. Mafich Arabi’s funky drum work is essentially unchanged from its album counterpart, but is far more vibrant and energetic with all that extra, delicious bass reverberating off open spaces.

Even better, some of these tunes have been reworked to serve the party environment of Glastonbury. Marks adds layers of cacophonous rhythms and acid squelches to the start of White Paint, turning a formerly sombre piece of music into a raucous build. 887 gets double-timed beats along with funky “whoop whoop” drops, and Kincajou... is actually rather mellow, despite a pumping rhythm kicking throughout. Heh, not like I’d expect another half-hour ambient excursion of the tune at Glastonbury; The Orb, sure.

As for that final cut, Data Inadequate, hot damn, where did this come from? Right, Marks’ first tape-only album Medium, and the old-school vibes are clear as day, all sci-fi space opera synths and chugging UK acid house beats. Its light years away from the typical Banco world beat sound, and a wonderful way to cap off an already fun CD.

Live At Glastonbury may only hold interest for fans of Toby Marks’ project, but for my money (and maybe yours!), it’s also an excellent example of how to do a live album right. Great sound recording, unique variations of tracks, and even a few surprises thrown in: what more could you ask for?

Banco de Gaia - Last Train To Lhasa

Mammoth Records: 1995

I was so disappointed when I first got Last Train To Lhasa. All the expectations and preconceived notions of what Toby Marks' proper sophomore effort would bring, and none of them came about. In fact, what the Hell is this music on here? House beats? Techno? Weird wibbly ambient excursion? I thought Banco de Gaia was supposed to be a cooler sounding Deep Forest. This isn’t what I'd heard from him before. Okay, so it was only two tracks by that point, both on an ambient dub compilation, but it was enough to know exactly what my new favourite electronic act was all about. Don't judge me. I'm old enough to know what's up with music in the world, at this old age of seventeen.

Yeah, 1996 Sykonee had a lot to learn, but I'm continuously amused by that first impression of this album, one that obviously dissipated after a couple more play-throughs. Some things still hold it back from being a great Banco LP, yet there’s also things you’re not gonna find elsewhere in his discography either.

Like that thirty-six minute version of Kincajou on CD2! Essentially carrying on where the main album version faded off, story goes Duck! Asteroid came about during a studio jam. What, was Pete Namlook hanging out at the time? It definitely has the hallmarks of the ambient wizard’s lengthy noodle-fests, but somehow never meanders, feeling like you’re travelling about the galaxy in a space-born Tibetan monastery. The fact it’s followed upon by another spacey dub cut (Eagle) completes the sonic trip through the cosmos (I guess the tribal-trance Gnomes Mix of Kuos is the launch).

What about CD1, then? Well, Last Train To Lhasa’s here, made popular by its inclusion on the first Northern Exposure. I like it fine, but not as much as others do – good atmospheric moments and all, but rather lacking in the rhythm department. In fact, most of this album has that ‘some-good, some-meh’ production going on. Kuos has a fun idea somewhere, but is undone by using such an overplayed African sample for its hook. Amber builds wonderfully at the beginning (that bass!), then doesn’t go much of anywhere after; alternatively, 887 has a great finish, but ambles far too long to get there. White Paint’s pretty good, what with its soaring choral pads and dubby beat, but I’ve been spoiled by the chipper version on the Live At Glastonbury CD. China’s a pleasant little chill number, portraying the culture in a more positive light compared to the scathing indictment Marks mentions in the liner notes regarding Tibetan atrocities. Take a stance, guy.

Speaking of stances, I’m always surprised by how many point to Last Train To Lhasa as their favourite Banco album. Sillies, his follow-up albums were far better, ol’ Toby finally and firmly breaking away from standard dance music moulds marked by his early work. This one has its share of brilliant, sublime moments within the Banco discography, but not to the degree latter efforts offered.