A/C of the Gods?

>> Banco de Gaia reveals a pyramid scheme

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Remember Erich Von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods, and all the cheap '70s paperback that followed, purporting to unravel ancient mysteries and offer proof of pre-Biblical UFO visits?

Maybe it's the arcane inscriptions on the CD jacket, the field recordings from the pyramids of Egypt or the occasional Floydian slips of '70s-style space-rock synths, but Igizeh, Banco de Gaia's latest collection of hyperglobal mystic grooves, really puts me in that headspace--and Banco-man Toby Marks approves.

"I didn't set out to do an Erich Von Daniken tribute album," he says, never one to start out with a rigid plan anyway. "But there's a certain element of tongue-in-cheekness about Igizeh. In the same way that Erich Von Daniken books are a little bit too much, too over-the-top--there's some interesting ingredients, but then the conclusions are just huge and ridiculous, in my opinion. So I felt like putting pyramids on the cover and all, as an affectionate lampoon, if you like. Not consciously of Von Daniken, but of the whole hippie spirituality, New-Age-flakey kind of thing."

Marks first went to Egypt in 1990. "I couldn't believe I was actually standing by the Nile and at the pyramids. These are things I'd dreamed of as a kid. A bit like Tibet, where I haven't got to yet--mythical places, almost. I went back last year and I finally remembered to bring a recorder with me, because there's always interesting sounds--street atmosphere, and the acoustics inside the great pyramids. You've got these long passages and big chambers, really interesting reverb and echoes, the sound of people whispering in the distance. It's all quite atmospheric."

Or at least it was. Marks was disappointed upon his return. "I got to the Great Pyramid, and it had been, quote, 'renovated.' They'd hacked huge chunks of stone out of the inside of the walls of the main chamber and stuck a lot of steel brackets in, presumably to make it safe, but it just looked like an unfinished building site. In the king's chamber they've installed a huge air conditioner. All it does it sit there humming and grinding away and generally ruining the atmosphere. Suddenly all the wonderful acoustics and strange, echoey silences have been destroyed."

All was not lost, though. "Down at Thebes is where the Valley of Kings and Queens is, with loads and loads of old temples. What people generally do is hire pushbikes and go cycling around the desert, visiting sites and getting sunburned. It's really fun, but a lot of them are quite busy, with busloads of tourists coming in."

Not so at the temple of Seti 1. "It's a bit off the beaten track, and always peaceful--never more than three or four people inside. We got some really nice recordings, because the village nearby is pretty isolated. There's a couple of mosques, and at about 3 o'clock the muezzin come out and start singing. There's not much traffic noise and not too many people around, so it makes for a nice location recording. That's what became the beginning of the track 'Seti 1.'"

Check that track and you'll here street kids chanting, muezzin caterwauling and maybe, if you listen close, some UFOs puttering about in the background.

DJ set at Jingxi on Tuesday, Nov. 28, 10pm, $8