by Dean Carlson
While claiming that his musical pseudonym is named after both Benito Mussolini's homosexual lover and the most boring opera ever made, Toby Marks makes music that's actually quite serious, full of abstract ambience and era-jumping Eastern and Western experimentation. Maya offers the strongest recollection of acid house of anything in his discography, with light, airy breakbeats and endlessly pleasant pianos rippling against a large backdrop of Asian influences. "Shanti" and "Qurna (Mister Christian on the Decks)" are easy favorites, and even when there's nothing to really tie it all together, there's a sort of pastoral tourist charm throughout.