Banco De Gaia
Big Men Cry

The saxophone is a rare presence in electronic music. You can hear it at the end of "Rendez-Vous" by Jean Michel Jarre, or in early '90s Tangerine Dream, but in general, it's hard to find traces of it. One of these traces is in "Celestine", the second track on the "Big Men Cry" album, released in 1997 by Toby Marks alias Banco de Gaia. The track is introduced by the sound of bells (albeit sampled), and shortly after, a male voice intones a chant: the pace is slow, very relaxing, but there it is: at 3'40" from the start, the warm tone of the baritone sax (played by Dick Parry) performs a solo over the underlying rhythmic base; later, the voice returns with its refrain, until towards the conclusion, the tempo accelerates to host a new solo, this time on the tenor sax (played by Matt Jenkins).

As always, Banco de Gaia's music is very eventful, so much so that in the 68 minutes of this third studio album, one encounters ideas, musical cues, and atmospheres of diverse inspiration. An electronic sound that sounds strangely familiar because very pleasant in its sound and pleasing to listen to, but at every moment, it reminds us of its synthetic nature, of an authentic interface between the shimmer of its elegantly polished sounds and the depths (ours) that it urges us to gaze into. "Drunk As A Monk" is one of the most successful episodes in this sense, a track introduced by tribal percussion with male voices stirring in the background; four minutes pass before the bass line comes in, accompanied by a very powerful beat and expansive melodic lines that render the soundscape of the piece epic.

Thus flows, fluid and hypnotic, the music of "Big Men Cry", at times possessed by the wild outbreak of percussion, at other times saddened by soft melodies as in the track giving the album its title. Meanwhile, the two final tracks are very atmospheric, "One Billion Miles Out" and "Starstation Earth" (half an hour of music, if you look closely...), with the idea of celestial space present even in the titles: almost entirely devoid of rhythmic drive but full of distant radio signals and distorted voices sending their unheard messages. A fitting closure, straddling the dreamlike and the visionary, for an excellent work.