Oh, and maybe... just maybe it was the fat statue of Hotei, the laughing Buddha, cackling in my basement that set it off. Or it could have been the cheese curds. Or possibly, it was the kif... but at some point in the two years since I wrote the Pitchfork review of Banco De Gaia's Big Men Cry, Toby Marks went from soundtracking my walk through Wal-Mart, to orchestrating my synapses. (If you're not following this, it's only 'cause you haven't read the aforementioned review, which can be found, as always, in the Pitchfork review archive.)

I had this velvet poster and a blacklight, and I touched it, and it was like... wow, man! The sounds of Banco De Gaia emanated from the speakers, dragging my brain around by its stem and slapping it into the corners of the room with layer upon heavy layer of percussion, chanting, lilting melodies. Everything was syncopating into weird textures like a fine Sumatran dish, the seasonings plugging me deeply into its... oneness. And it didn't stop-- no, it didn't stop. Not today, not now or ever. Whenever I heard it, it plugged me back in and the sound overcame me.

I guess some would lump The Magical Sounds of Banco De Gaia in with "techno." Penetr8ing Gaze Man would surely call it techn-o. But it's so organic, so natural and flowing. But it doesn't qualify as ambient, either. It's not just a flow of mysterious frightening notes meant to be a backdrop to daily life. I mean, it's like that, but not really. Better, really. Really better. [Lay off the crack pipe, James! -Ed.]

And sometimes it makes me laugh, I hear the frogs singing and the evangelists shouting for their souls and the rainforest birds calling... and I don't know what it means that Banco is plugged into my personal rhythm... I just don't know, but it can't be bad. It's eclectic and dense, filled with bits I'll wouldn't understand, things I couldn't understand, things I shouldn't understand. Like the soft grey thing that rides around in my skull and comprises most of what I believe to be my personality.

No, it can't be bad. Toby Marks is just tuned in, operating at precisely the right bandwidth. No, not bandwidth-- he's in geosynchronious orbit. Yeah, two spheres circling one another, grokking off their magnetism, acting and reacting, the rhythms, the chants, they fill my mind... so much confusion... so much harmony...

I remember that Big Men Cry review I wrote and the letters people sent. They said they liked it for the most part, and that was nice, but maybe I missed the mark. Maybe Toby was creating something deeper than I even knew. But the letters made me very happy and if you wrote one, thank you now, thank you then, and thank you forever, good people. I speak to you now: know that The Magical Sounds has a little more juice to it. Know that it's a little heavier in the beats. But also know that I miss Dick Parry's sax. I'm tuned in-- don't get me wrong-- but the sax on Big Men Cry is what turned it into something truly special. Yeah, this is another great Banco album, and it has reached me as few electro albums can. So, I say now, "Dig it."

-James P. Wisdom