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Toby Marks, the British producer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist behind Banco de Gaia, has been making world music almost since before that term got trendy. With Farewell Ferengistan, his seventh studio album, Marks has made a sequel of sorts to perhaps his best-known work, 1995's Last Train to Lhasa, which he wrote to draw attention to the plight of Chinese-occupied Tibet. Like that album, Ferengistan uses Marks' mostly instrumental blending of instruments and beats from around the world to make some subtle but provocative comments on world affairs. The result is one of the smartest and most improbably enjoyable electronica albums of 2006.

We asked Toby some track-by-track questions about Farewell Ferengistan to shed some light on the stories behind his music and his intriguing song titles:

1. Is the album title/first track a reference to the Ferengis from Star Trek?

He-he, no! Although actually I think they got the name from the same source. Ferengi was a name used in central Asia for foreigners or westerners in the 18th and 19th centuries when the Europeans (British and Russian empire-builders on the whole) started turning up in remote areas where white people hadn't been seen before. Ferengistan was the name used for the general area these strange people came from.

2. "Ynys Elen" is a Welsh name -- is there any traditional Welsh/Celtic instrumentation on this track? Certainly the chord progression evokes traditional Brit-pop more than any Banco de Gaia track I've heard before.

Er, no. There's some Indonesian flute but nothing Celtic I can think of. The title is a (very) subtle joke but I'm not saying what it is!

3. "Chingiz" is a variant of the name "Genghis" -- can you explain what the idea behind this track was?

I read recently that in 2004 the Mongolian authorities introduced a law requiring everyone to have a surname (which had been stopped previously in the 1920's by the then current communist administration). Most people had no reason to choose one name over another so a huge proportion of the population chose 'Borjigin' which was the clan name of Genghis (also more accurately spelt Chingiz) Khan, leaving the bureaucrats to deal with the problem of half the population having the same name! A bit like half of U.S. citizens deciding to be called 'Custer' or something I guess...

4. "Kara Kum" is named after a desert in Kazakhstan -- have you ever been to that part of the world? What appealed to you about the name "Kara Kum"?

Gotta be honest, I've never been there and chose the name simply because there is a guitar sample in the track from Georgia (the country, not the U.S. state, and which actually isn't very close to there at all but the name caught my eye on the map!).

5. Do you think Live 8 had any impact at all the G8? ("The Harmonious G8")

Who knows? Certainly the TV coverage here in the UK had a pretty negative impact on a lot of people as there was such a clearly delineated "us and them" between the public and the celebrities and too many of them seemed to be treating it as an in-crowd party and totally ignoring the point. Probably more good was done by raising awareness (and guilt-levels) amongst the public...[but] I can't help feeling the world leaders have their plans mapped out already and public opinion's not going to change them.

6. What was your "Saturn Return" like?

Got my Banco career off the ground so it can't have been bad! Also got together with my wife back then so really it was a rather good time.

7. Are you a big Philip K. Dick fan? Any book of his a favorite of yours? ("Flow My Dreams, the Android Wept")

Yeah, I love his stuff. It's hard to pick a favourite but maybe Ubik although I like most of them in different ways (although I've yet to try Valis and have been warned it's not for light reading!).

8. What do you feel is your biggest burden or obligation as a white man making music that draws influences from non-white/Western cultures? ("White Man's Burden")

I don't know if I feel any, really. I draw on cultures from all over the world, near and far, and don't really make a distinction between, for example, white European classical composers and black African percussionists. It's all music to me, and whilst I am cautious not to insult people's religious beliefs I don't feel particularly obliged to treat any of it in any particular way. If I'm going to feel a debt or obligation to Ravi Shankar or Youssou N'dour, then I also have to feel the same to John Lennon, Steve Reich and the guy playing guitar in my local pub.

9. Who does the vocals on the last track? ("We All Know the Truth")

It's a local friend of mine called Maya Preece. She sings with a folk/acoustic group called Dragonsfly who do mainly British and Breton traditional music. I just loved their version of that song and wanted to try to bring it to a different audience. I'm hoping we'll do more together in the future.

And a bonus question:

10. As someone with an obvious love of different peoples and cultures from all over the world, what's your greatest fear about the way geopolitical events are unfolding? What's your greatest hope?

I see more and more wealth and power in the hands of a small group of mainly western businessmen and politicians and I don't believe they have anyone's interest at heart but their own. It suits them to 'standardise' as much of different cultures as possible, and losing the diversity and uniqueness different people have developed over the centuries is a huge loss. My one hope is that with ever more widely reaching communications between individuals, particularly the spread of information via the Internet, one day enough people might realise that we vastly outnumber them and dare to stop playing their game. Let's just hope we don't leave it too late.

Banco de Gaia's new album, Farewell Ferengistan, is available now in the ARTISTdirect Store.