Banco de Gaia Remix Contest

Grand Prize Winner

 

Runner Ups

 

Grand Prize

Merchandise from Six Degrees Records
Vegas®+DVD software
Cinescore® software
Two Cinescore Theme Libraries

About the Contest

Six Degrees Records returns with Banco de Gaia, the thinking man's electronic artist. ACIDplanet.com® is offering "Ynys Elen" from Farewell Ferengistan for remixing.

Elen is an Ancient Celtic Goddess, considered by many to be the guardian Goddess of Britain. Often depicted as radiant and fair, Ynys Elen is the Welsh name for Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel.

Now that you know that, get to remixing.

About the Artists

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 (and Mercury Prize nominated) 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, 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 heritage, it could be Arabic, German, Byzantine or Greek, it’s roots are not entirely clear, but it’s common meaning is a reference to the home of Westerners and white people (used in Central Asia) and 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 it’s 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 for well over a decade.