Frostokovich | Merion Station, PA United States | 06/28/2003
(5 out of 5 stars)
"While "Last Train to Lhasa" remains my all time favorite Banco de Gaia disk, "Maya" is the first public CD by BdG, and a superb introduction to the music. While Banco de Gaia, like many other ambient/techno entities, offers great dance beats, it soars above this basic form, creating something richer than most dance/dub/club sample music--something enticing and addictive that stands up to many repeated listenings...which is not something you can say about the majority of the music in the genre. Transcendent."
Outstanding!!!
J. Andersen | Nesconset, NY United States | 07/22/2002
(5 out of 5 stars)
"In hindsight, this album is definitely a platform of sorts for Toby Marks from which he plunged into ambient mastery. This album was released while still on the Planet dog label which I think definitely had an influence on the style. Huge deep soundscapes and melodical texture combine to transport the listener to other worlds. Awesome album. Well worth the bucks."
Magnificent work
Eddie | Romania | 10/15/2002
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This is actually the first Banco de Gaia record I have listened to, but it is still my favourite. OK maybe it is a bit more simple than some of his others, but that is not a bad thing, I don't think. This is the kind of record that starts you on a different kind of music than you were used to. Especially in today's landscape of mind numbing, repetitive and everybody-sings-the-same-thing pop music, it makes an especially refreshing listen. As with all good music, it might not appeal to you straight away, but if you give it a chance and you listen to it a couple of times, it is impossible not to get caught in the depth of the music. Beautiful staging, with layers of sounds interlacing perfectly, it just takes you away on a ride that you don't want to stop. Somewhere it kind of reminded me of Tangerine Dream, but not really as style, more in what concerns the beauty of the music, the way everything fits perfectly. All right, I went on long enough. Bottom line is, I am glad I had the chance of getting to listen to it, my music experience would have been so much poorer without it."
Good selections for a DJ's set, but unsatisfying as an artis
Christopher Culver | 06/14/2009
(2 out of 5 stars)
"MAYA, released in 1992, is Toby Mark's first album under his Banco de Gaia moniker. It's nine tracks fall into the ambient, acid house, or dub genres. All feature what is BdG's trademark, the use of samples which are either taken from indigenous musical traditions of the world (Middle East mutterings, Bushmen chants), or from other sources but electronically altered to sound like they are from indigenous musics. I find BdG's music interesting as a document of an era when this kind of exotica was penetrating youth culture more than at any time since the 1960s. Though its kitchen sink collection of Third World sample joined to the predictable 4/4 beat of house, Banco de Gaia seem to represent musically the global village the world was fast becoming.
The tracks here would make a solid contribution to a DJ set, but as an artist album I find it unsatisfying. All of the tracks seem to meld into each other, and there's no enough diversity to make you feel you're getting your money's worth. Certainly Toby Marks alleviated this in later efforts, especially when he put the slightest touch of pop into his 2000 album IGIZEH, but this early effort doesn't quite have it down yet."