New website

I totally forgot to announce a while back that I have a new Banco website, and have moved everything over to there, so will not be using this Blog in the same way. For more info on all Banco ephemera, please go here

It was 20 years ago today ......

I am very happy to announce the release later this month of the 20th anniversary special edition of Maya.

The original was released on Monday 28th February 1994 by Planet Dog Records on both CD and double 12’’, with a limited edition vinyl set that came with an extra 12’’. The album reached No.1 in the Independent Album charts and was nominated for that year’s Mercury Music Prize .

To mark the anniversary, I have put together a triple CD set that features the original album plus two extra discs: one features alternative unreleased mixes of almost every track of the album, including the original full 22 minute mix of Shanti, while the other contains a bevy of remixes, including a brand new version of Mafichi Arabi by Temple Hedz.

I have printed only 1500 copies, with each copy numbered, and once this batch are sold, I will not print any more, as I would like to keep this as something special. To that end I am also not making the album available online as a download, nor will it be appearing on any streaming sites.  

The collection is available to pre-order now from Bandcamp, and I will sign all copies ordered before the official release on February 28th. If you have any dedications, please let me know when pre-ordering, but if possible keep them short as I can’t write too much!

To celebrate the release, I am hosting a night at the local King Arthurs Hall in Glastonbury on Saturday 1st March, where myself and Dr Trippy will be playing live and Andy Guthrie will be DJing. Two weeks later I am in London supporting The Orb at Electric Brixton.

For Such A Time

As we approach the start of the holidays and the end of the year, I just wanted to thank you all for your support in 2013. Having taken 7 years to write 'Apollo', your reactions and feedback to it have been affirming and heart warming. Creating 'Ollopa' was equally rewarding, as it was such a pleasure to have my friends and colleagues add their magic to my music.

The last batch of remixes is due out this Saturday (21st) to mark the winter Solstice, with pre-orders available now from Bandcamp. The 'For Such a Time' EP features remixes from three excellent UK based producers: Kuba provides a dreamy, Zero 7-esque version with floating synths and a rolling bassline ; System 7 add their distinctive twisting and playful style to the track, creating an ethereal vibe around a distinctly feel-good rhythm; while Animat’s take is more of a deep and dubby affair, awash with echo and delay, forming a lush and warm space.

 There are a few gigs on the horizon with the final show of the year happening at Galleria in Naples, Italy on December 23rd. Mid January I am off to Australia to play 2 sets (1 uptempo and 1 chilled) at Rainbow Serpent Festival on the 24th plus a side show in Melbourne's Northcote Social Club on the 23rd, with support from Deep Fried Dub, Dom Hogan and Sunsaria. Then in February I'm off to Panama to play at the Geoparadise Festival.

I should have some exciting news for you in January about not only the 20th anniversary of 'Maya' (hasn't time flown by!) but also the first non Banco release on Disco Gecko Recordings - the debut release by my compadre Dr Trippy. 

Ollopa:Apollo Remixed #2

 

'Ollopa:Apollo remixed' came out early last week. I have waited til now to update you on this, however, as one of the vagaries of the music industry is that different countries have different release dates. I am not entirely sure why America releases albums on a Tuesday or New Zealand on a Friday, but they apparently do, and we have to put up with it. Anyways, enough grumbling about the business and on to the music!

As mentioned in my last post, I never intended to create a remix album: the plan was to solicit remixes of only 4 of the tracks, and release those around the solstice and equinox dates (my label manager is such a hippy!).

So I emailed my friends and allies in the music world and was blown away by how many folk were up for remixes, and in that way 'Ollopa' was born. As the mixes came in, it became obvious that there was an opportunity to remix the album concept as well, by flipping the order (and then the name and the artwork), so that the collection would begin softly and end with a bang.

'Ollopa' opens with Tripswitch’s sublime remix of 'Acquiescence', which builds slowly from an ambient opening into a downtempo delight, setting the tone nicely for both Antipodean duo, Deep Fried Dub, who add a cheeky dancehall lick to 'Oreia', and the high priests of sacred bass, Desert Dwellers, whose jittery yet soothing remix of 'All Sleeping' is like sonic incense.

The sinewy melodies of 'Hu!' are strengthened and complimented by some tough, bass-driven beats on the Unusual Cosmic Process remix, while Kaya Project’s worldly ears (and added vocals) guide 'Apollon' to new enchanted places, and the essence of 'For Such A Time' is retained and enhanced by System 7, as they add their distinctive twisting and playful style to the track.

I transformed 'Eternal Sunshine' from something designed for the dancefloor to something perhaps more suitable for sofa stimulation, which was great fun to do. My former Planet Dog labelmate Eat Static provided a suitably bonkers psychedelic Gypsy/Balkan mix of 'Wimble Toot', leaving Gaudi to end the collection with his remix of 'Lamentations', which encapsulates the emotion of the original within a funky, bass heavy breakbeat.

Dave Whitehead once again provided amazing artwork, flipping 'Apollo''s sun into a moon, and transforming the fiery oranges into soft blues. Plus he added some cheeky footsteps on to the moonscape in the middle.

Some of the remixes were made for swaps: the Gaudi remix is up on Soundcloud for free download, my Kaya Project remix is available via their Bandcamp page, and the Desert Dwellers have yet to release my take on their 'Shiva Nataraj' tune.

In other news, I have been confirmed to play at Rainbow Serpent in Australia on January 24th and am currently booking some other shows around that.

All Sleeping

It seems only fitting that as summer slips into fall, I release this ode to rest and relaxtion.

The 'All Sleeping' EP features the original track, which is blessed with flutes from Tim Wheater and violas from Patrick Dunn, plus three additional remixes.

The high priests of Sacred Bass, Desert Dwellers, provide a jittery yet soothing mix, while Mistrust's electronica musings darken the original mood. Finally Hibernation lifts us back into a sweet space with a solid downtempo mix, sealed by the additional bass.

Available now from Bandcamp or from iTunes etc from Monday 23rd September.

Ollopa:Apollo Remixed

The big news from Banco towers is that next month I am releasing a selection of remixes of tracks from 'Apollo' entitled 'Ollopa'.

It was never the intention to create a remix album as I was happy with the idea of only a few singles, but so many friends and allies responded to the call to remix tracks and the results were so enjoyable that it just had to be done! I am indebted to all the remixers for their sterling work - as mentioned in a previous post, it is fascinating seeing what other people do with my tunes.

The order of 'Apollo' (and the name and some of the artwork) has been flipped to allow a steady progression from downtempo and dub to breaks and beats and you can preview it up on Soundcloud or Mixcloud.

'Ollopa' is ready for pre-order now from Bandcamp and will be released in North America on October 8th, Australia October 15th, New Zealand October 11th and the rest of the world on October 7th.

There are a few gigs in the pipeline, but nothing confirmed yet. As soon as they are, I will post details on Facebook and the Banco website.

Apollon

The second single from the album, the sort of title track Apollon, is out now and features remixes from a motley crew of friends and allies. First up is the amazing Kaya Project , whose worldly ears (and added vocals) guide the track to new enchanted places – quite the opposite of Bristol’s Playhead, whose heavy dose of urban bass and vibes drags the original into a dark and seedy nightclub! Loop Guru’s Sam D builds a solid groove around the drums and throws in a sprinkle of ethereal psychedelia for good measure, leaving Leamington legend Dr. Trippy to dub it up for the dancefloor, adding reggae-ish horns and a dirty big skank. A big thanks are due to them for putting their touch on the tune - it's always interesting to hear what people do with my music.

On that note, I have been doing a few remixes myself: one for Gaudi which you can download for free from Soundcloud, and one for the aformentioned Kaya Project which is up now on their Bandcamp.

Any of you who ‘like’ Banco De Gaia on Facebook will know we have been posting mixes of all Banco tunes made by friends and fans up at Mixcloud - if you haven’t heard them yet, please check them out as they have created some great arrangements.

We have set up a very simple merchandise store with assorted T shirt designs, record bags and even some mugs!

Finally, I have a few international shows coming up: Trimurti Festival in Russia on June 23, Nagisa Festival in Tokyo on June 29 and Roughrare in Kobe on June 30. I am back in the UK for the astoundingly good Beat-Herder Festival on July 6 and then am playing a downtempo set in Frome on July 13. More details of these shows and others are up on the Banco website or Facebook page.

Apollo has landed

So .... Apollo, my first new album in seven years, is now finally out, and should be available, either as a CD, download or stream, in every country in the world :-)

I hope you think it worth the long wait. I didn't spend all of the last seven years making it but I did put as much energy and time as possible into getting every track as perfect as I could.

And I didn't do this alone: those of you who have heard the album will hopefully join me in thanking Zhenia Mahdi-Nau for the amazing vocals she contributed to the opening and closing tracks, which we originally made for a film called Ancient Skies (more on that later); Tim Wheater was also kind enough to provide flutes for All Sleeping, along with Patrick Dunn on viola; Matthew Jenkins blew his saxophone for Wimble Toot and long term cohort Ted Duggan added drums to Hu!

I am also very grateful to the talented Dave Whitehead who collaborated with me yet again on the album artwork, creating not just an excellent front cover (featuring a NASA image of the sun in a solar eclipse combined with an old painting of Apollo and the Muses) but also a whole booklet of ideas. There is a great story behind the artwork, which I will post on Facebook sometime soon.

It's been wonderful working on Banco tunes again, and as well as creating remixes for Gaudi, Kaya Project and Desert Dwellers, I'm starting to think about the next lot. Hopefully this means it won't be another seven years til the next Banco album!

I have quite a few shows coming up: Zu in Lewes on April 12, Inspiral Lounge in London on April 13, a DJ Set at LAMP in Leamington Spa on May 11, then to the Trimurti Festival in Russia on June 23 and Nagisa Festival in Tokyo on June 29, plus various others.

Maybe see you on the dancefloor sometime soon?

Wimble Toot

Firstly, thanks to all of you who have pre-ordered the new album 'Apollo' already. Your support and generosity is heartwarming and much appreciated, as is the feedback via email and Facebook.

If you want to check out what all the fuss is about, I have posted a ‘megamix’ on Soundcloud that blends all the tracks together.

Anyways, this Thursday, March 21st, saw the release of the first single from the album: the “Wimble Toot” EP features the title track, with amazing saxophone courtesy of Matthew Jenkins, and some pretty crazy remixes.

My original partner, Andy Guthrie, has donned his 100th Monkey guise to turn in a sweet reggae mix and Merv from Eat Static has provided a suitably bonkers psychedelic Gypsy/Balkan banger while Misled Convoy from New Zealand’s Pitch Black has stripped the track totally back to create a bass heavy, dubwise soundscape.


Oh, and I made a video too:



The EP is up now on Bandcamp or will be up on iTunes and Amazon etc on Monday 25th.

Thanks for all the feedback on the vinyl – unfortunately due to other commitments, including finishing my Master’s degree exploring electroacoustic composition, my label manager and I let the plan slip behind schedule, which has meant even if we launch the Kickstarter campaign now, we probably won’t get it printed in time. We haven’t given up on the idea, as we love heavyweight vinyl, and might talk to Beat Delete to see if we can join them, which would allow other titles to be printed too.

The launch party in Somerset never came together in the end, but I am still playing at The Zu in Lewes on Friday 12 and Inspiral Cafe in London on Saturday 13 April. Lots of gigs around the world being worked on at the moment, and I will update you about them next month.

PS. Just in case you are wondering, check here for more info on Wimble Toot.

New album #1

I am very happy to announce that my new album 'Apollo' is finally available to pre-order via BANDCAMP from today.

Containing 9 brand new tracks, 'Apollo' features contributions from Zhenia Mahdi-Nau and Tim Wheater amongst others, and like all my albums, contains elements of ambient, world and dance music. While much has changed in the world during the 7 years since 'Farewell Ferengistan' came out, I would like to think that the heart and soul of my music has remained the same: I may not go to as many all night parties as I once did, but I still like to dance and make dance music; equally, I love building downtempo grooves and making music to chill out and breathe to.

A plethora of remixes are currently bubbling away in studios worldwide, with the first single, 'Wimble Toot', coming with mixes from Eat Static, 100th Monkey and Misled Convoy (Pitch Black). More info on that soon.

In the meantime, if you go to Bandcamp, you can pre-order the album as either a digital download or as a CD. Whatever format you choose, you will be able to download 3 tracks right away, with the balance (and/or the CD) being available on the day of release. The download comes with a 7 page PDF booklet plus the front and back cover, while the CD is in a lovingly designed Digipack with a 12 page booklet.

I am thinking of starting a Kickstarter campaign to see how much interest there is in printing the album on vinyl - it would be a double album in a gatefold sleeve and would probably cost about £25 plus postage.  What do you think?

Gigs are slowly trickling in and I will announce more on them soon, but for the meantime, my focus is on the album launch parties at The Zu in Lewes on Friday 12 and Inspiral Cafe in London on Saturday 13 April, as well as something rather closer to home here in Somerset (details tbc).

Eclipse Download

This weekend I am heading off to Australia to play at the Eclipse 2012 festival being held in North Queensland. It promises to be quite an amazing experience, with the totality of the solar eclipse lasting over 2 minutes. Alongside a heady mix of musical acts and styles, the 'Survival Guide' promises snakes, funnel-web spiders and crocodiles too!

In preparation for the event, I have recorded a special version of a track from the new album, which has been posted up for free download from the Banco Bandcamp site. Please share the link (but not the track) far and wide.

And yes, I did say "new album": I finished mixing tracks last week, the amazing John Dent mastered it on Monday and we are finalising the segues at the moment. Entitled "Apollon", it will be released early in April next year, and I should have more info on that soon. The original version of the free track, "Eternal Sunshine", is probably the most uptempo track on the album, which overall is a joyful mix of grooves, global flavours and sublime chilled moments.

As well as the Eclipse event, I am playing at the Northcote Social Club in Melbourne on Sunday 18 November, and then, slightly nearer to home, at Hebden Bridge Trades Club on December 1st and in Dublin on December 20th at Ireland 2012.

Housekeeping

I hope that 2012 has been treating you well so far. It's been full-on down here, especially since the new studio was finally finished in February. I've hardly left it since!

Recording of the new album has not gone as swiftly as I would like, but thankfully this is not due to writer's block but my desire to make this album the best it possibly can be. After all it has been six, yes six, long years since Farewell Ferengistan, so I feel like I should try to make it a belter.

The current plan is to release a single later this year, and then drop the album in the spring, hopefully leading up to a run of summer festivals.

Speaking of festivals, I had a blast at Bearded Theory, and thanks to all the lovely messages on Facebook about that. I have a few festivals booked for this summer, mainly local it turns out, which is handy for me! First up of the Somerset ones is Sunrise Celebration on June 24th (10am Sunday morning, a gently chill set to ease into the day), then Orchestra in a Field on June 30th (not a Banco gig but as part of the Post War Orchestra), Whirl-y-Gig's Whirl-y-Fayre on July 22nd (getting their very own festival at last) and finally Waveform Festival on August 31st. The only non-UK event I am booked for so far is Colours of Ostravia in Czech Repbulic on July 13th, so if you live near to there, come say "Dobrý den"! There may be others added so please keep checking the website or Facebook, although a quiet summer of gigs does mean more time in the studio.

There is a final bit of housekeeping to do before the year is out, with You Are Here and Farewell Ferengistan getting digital re-releases in July and August, with added bonus tracks. Both will be out via all digital download stores, but as always I would point you towards our Bandcamp site as it gives you the biggest choice of file sizes and types, plus the most added content (for the lowest possible price too!).

That's all for now

Free Download

At Banco Towers there is a sense of great relief and satisfaction at the year about to end: as well as finally moving house after a succession of hiccups and hold ups, plus building a brand new studio out the back of the new house, we managed to get the majority of the back catalogue repackaged and online. While I know the latter does not have the allure of new material, it had become imperative to look after the past so that I could move forward, knowing it was available and properly represented at last. Your support for these re-releases throughout the year was heart warming, with the comments on Facebook and elsewhere meaning a great deal to me and I thank you for that.

You will be happy (I hope!) to hear that new music is in the pipeline: I won't jinx the project by giving you a month but hopefully 2012 will see the first new Banco studio album since 2006.

In the meantime, we have posted up on Bandcamp a live recording of a set at Sankey's Soap in Manchester from back in 1997, when we were a 5-piece live band. Alex from Tarquins Live recorded it from the audience and I've re-mastered it a bit: it's a bootleg so please don't expect pristine quality but it's quite fun, nonetheless. You can download this for free by entering your email address (I know we have it already but we couldn't work out any other way of giving this recording away just to our fans).

We will be in touch in the new year about gigs and releases, and until then I wish you a very Happy Christmas / Hannukah / Kwanzaa / Winterval / Holidays / Humbug / Whatever.

Rewritten Histories

Happy Halloween

Hope you have all had a great summer. Mine was good on the whole: some excellent festivals, with Ozora being the highlight, plus I managed to get a little bit of time off and went to Greece for a holiday. Unfortunately the English weather wasn't great but it meant I had more time to devote to building the studio ....

Which I am happy to say is more or less finished - the building work is done, and now all that is left is to get the acoustics perfect. I can't wait to start making new tracks in the new space - I have been working on several over the summer using just my laptop, and look forward to tweaking them with proper equipment.

In the meantime I have a little bit of housekeeping still to do, and am releasing two collections of remixes and mixes later this year and early next. The first focuses on 1992-1995 and has all the early Ambient Dub and Planet Dog singles and remixes on. It comes out via the mainstream download platforms on November 28th, or you can pre-order it now from BandCamp.

I have two gigs coming up this month: Inspiral in London on November 5th and then the Spirit of Colours Festival in Mexico on November 26th.

Last Train

Yet again I have been overhwelmed by the comments about our last re-release: lovely to hear all the positive feeling people still have for Maya. I can only hope that you like this month's re-release as much.

Today sees the digital re-issue of "Last Train to Lhasa", possibly my most well known album - "Y'know, the one with the train ....?"!!

I searched around to find extras, and was happy to discover the original version of "Eagle", which was supposed to go on disc 1 when "Lhasa" was first released but in the end we decided to leave it off and just have the ambient mix on disc 2. I have also added previously unreleased live versions of "Amber", "White Paint" and "Kincajou".

As with "Songs" and "Maya", "Lhasa" is available from all good download platforms, and from our Bandcamp page for £5.99 (which also gives you my "Here Comes the Norse Gods" remix of "Kincajou" as a bonus track).

I have had several emails asking when these re-issued albums with the extra tracks will be available physically - happy to say we are working on that right now, and hope to get something out either later this year or early next.

The gigs continue to flow in: on top of those announced last month, I have also been booked to play at the Life Festival (Ireland) on May 28th, Hebden Bridge Trades Club on June 17th and at Alchemy Festival (Lincolnshire) on September 18th, and we're still working on a few more.

Building Sound Buildings

As you may recall, I've been intending to build a new studio since last summer. We got the planning permission a couple of months ago but it's taken until now to be ready to start work on it. But today the builders arrived and started taking down the old structure and I've decided I should blog the whole process. So, for those of you who may be interested in watching the studio develop from an old shell to a shiny new room, I've started a new blog: Building Sound Buildings.

The build will be taking a lot of my attention for a while so you can expect the new blog to be rather more active than this one, but I will try to remember to drop by from time to time and let you know what else is going on in my world.

Maya

Thanks to all of you who have bought the “Songs from the Silk Road” anthology: your support and comments mean a lot to me.

It has been a wonderful process, going through the back catalogue and establishing some kind of control over it, and the whole experience has made me excited about creating new music.

The new material won't see the light of day till 2012, I am afraid, but for now I am happy to announce the first in a series of digital re-releases: “Maya” came out this week, complete with 3 extra tracks and slightly tweaked artwork. It is available from all download platforms (iTunes, eMusic, Amazon etc), but as with “Songs”, we have put it up on Bandcamp where you can download it for £4.99.

Gigs are coming in for the year: in June I am DJing at Sunrise Festival then playing live at Willowman and Glastonbury Festivals; in August I am playing Ozora (Hungary), Endorse-it in Dorset, Sonica (Montengro) and Aurora (Greece) Festivals. I don't know the date and times for some of the sets, but as soon as I do, I will post them up on Facebook and on the website. More dates are being added so do keep checking.

21 years and counting...

After many years shuttling between record labels, I have finally managed to get full control of most of my music back, and am happy to be relaunching my own Disco Gecko label this year. To start with, we are releasing an anthology of Banco de Gaia tracks entitled 'Songs from the Silk Road'. This comes out in February, either on CD in a lovingly crafted Digifile wallet (minimal plastic used) with an 8-page booklet or as a download with 2 bonus tracks – we recommend getting it from our BandCamp page as not only do you get 1 more bonus track, but you can also download the artwork and booklet as well. Available from February 1st.

We will be following this up with digital re-releases of the early Planet Dog albums and I'm currently digging through the archives to find bonus material – hopefully will be able to add some live versions, remixes and outtakes to each release.

Moving on to live shows, to celebrate the new album we're doing a launch gig at inSpiral Lounge in London on February 5th and a small gig on our home turf at The Castle in Bruton on February 19th: copies of the album will be available at both shows. We're also booking up festivals for another packed summer and will be releasing details soon.

In other news: the university course is going well, we now have full planning permission for the studio build, so that is progressing according to plan, and I'm looking forward to getting out and gigging again. See you all soon!

Homes, studios and brains

Ok, it's been over a year since I last wrote something here. That is incredibly slack of me, I know, but in my defence there has been a lot of change going on.

A couple of months ago we moved house. That entailed a few months of packing and, more significantly, taking the studio apart, which means that for the first time in 20 years I have no studio of my own. Serious as that sounds it is a temporary inconvenience and I have already launched plans to build a new, improved place. To be honest there were some serious problems with the last studio which I was never going to be able to fix so it's refreshing to start from scratch and hopefully get it spot on this time.

In the meantime I have access to another fine facility courtesy of The Orchard Recording Studios so I can continue to work on whatever may need doing. Which leads to the question: "what the hell am I doing musically at the moment?"

Well, actually, not a huge amount. Getting the new studio set up is the priority right now so new music is on hold, but we are planning to re-issue the old albums next year with added tracks and a few rarities so there's a bit of work to do. And there is also my other bit of news...

As of next week I will be studying Creative Sound and Media Technology. As you may well have noticed I have been working with video in my live shows for some years and I am fascinated by how effective sound and image together can be. I figured it would be good to really look into that in depth, leading to who knows what creative possibilities in the future, and you'll no doubt be pleased to know that the course involves a lot of new writing and recording so new material to release shouldn't be too far off.

I also thought it would be good to give my brain a bit of a work out too, 20 years of making music with a bit of label managing thrown in has got a bit predictable and I think waking up a few dormant brain cells can only be a good thing. Of course, I might find I get there and there aren't many cells left to re-awaken...

And finally all is revealed

Well, it's taken a while and we've had countless interruptions but finally I can tell you everything about the new album. There's a lot to tell so I'll break up into bite-sized pieces.

I formed Banco de Gaia with Andy Guthrie back in 1989, that's 20 years ago in case you didn't work it out, so it seems appropriate to do something in an anniversary mood. (No, I'm not buying Andy a ring). The new album is in effect that something, a kind of 20 year retrospective with a difference.

The title, as revealed previously, is "Memories Dreams Reflections" and the music can be broken up into three sections. Oh, and it's a double CD for those of you who still buy such things, or a damned big download.


Disc 1 begins with the 'Reflections' bit. This is a selection of cover versions of tunes which hugely inspired and influenced me in my formative years. To be precise it is a full length version of "Echoes" by Pink Floyd (that's 22 minutes), "Starless" by King Crimson and, as some of you may have worked out from recent live shows, "Spirit Of The Age" by Hawkwind.

The rest of Disc 1 is the 'Dreams'. These are reworkings of early Banco tunes which will be familiar to anyone who knows the original cassette albums but mostly unknown apart from that. Ranging from faithful recreation to extreme reworking, the tracks are "Soufie", "Tempra" and "Terra Om".

Disc 2 brings the 'Memories'. It's a 78 minute selection of live recordings taken from over the years and including early solo Banco rave anthems, through the 5-piece live band of the mid/late-90s and continuing on into the 'Toby and Ted' years up to the current live video show (without the video obviously, this is an audio CD).

So, getting on for two and a half hours of music, hope that makes up for the wait.

On to the release details. The album will be released worldwide on September 18th (September 22nd in North America), both CD and download, and it will be available from all the usual places (so hopefully that's anywhere you can think of) as well as direct from our very own mail order and download stores. We are also planning to make it available for a short period prior to that to our mailing list subscribers, so if you want to know where and when you'd better sign up to the list fast.

It's taken a long to time get here but hopefully the album will more than justify it's 20th anniversary status. I can't believe it's 20 years since Andy first said "do you want to play some guitar synth at this gig I'm doing?"...