Martyn Bates

Martyn Bates (born 1960), is an English singer, musician and songwriter.^[1]

Bates grew up listening to English folk music before he as a teenager became excited by punk and got involved in the more diverse and experimental post-punk scene. After releasing tapes of experimental, industrial music as Migraine Inducers he formed Eyeless in Gaza with Peter Becker in January 1980.^[2] The duo became known for their unconventional instrumentation and arrangements, and for Bates passionate vocals, which at times were whispered, howled, or stammered.^[3] Eyeless in Gaza released six albums on Cherry Red Records, including Photographs as Memories (1981), Caught in Flux (1981), Pale Hands I Loved So Well (1982), Drumming the Beating Heart (1982), Rust Red September (1983) and Back from the Rains, and then went on hiatus until 1993.

Bates then concentrated on solowork, and collaborated with Anne Clark and the band Hungry I, among others. He contributed to Derek Jarmans soundtracks The Garden and The Last of England and released soloalbums like Love Smashed on a Rock (1988), Letters to a Scattered Family (1990) and Stars Come Trembling (1990) which musically was a return to the acoustic folk roots of his youth.^[2]

In 1994 Bates released the album Chamber Music, Vol. 1 featuring music set to the poems of James Joyces Chamber Music, written in 1902.^[2]

Discography

Solo Albums

• Dissonance/Antagonistic Music (cassette as Migraine Inducers) 1979
• Letters Written (10" album), 1982
• The Return of the Quiet, 1987
• Love Smashed on a Rock, 1989
• Letters to a Scattered Family, 1990
• Stars Come Trembling, 1990
• Chamber Music 1, 1994
• Mystery Seas, 1995
• Chamber Music 2, 1996
• Imagination Feels Like Poison, 1997
• Dance of Hours, 2001
• Your Jewelled Footsteps (solo and collaboration works 1979–2006) (compilation), 2006
• A Map of the Stars in Summer (lyric book with CD), 2008
• Unsung, 2012
• Arriving Fire, 2015
• Fireworks & Jewels/The Colour of Amber, 2016

Anne Clark & Martyn Bates

• Just After Sunset – The Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, 1998

Martyn Bates & M.J. Harris

• Murder Ballads, 1998

Twelve Thousand Days (Martyn Bates & Alan Trench)

• In the Garden of Wild Stars, 2000
• The Devil in the Grain, 2001
• At the Landgate, EP 2005
• From the Walled Garden, 2006

Martyn Bates & Troum

• To a Child Dancing In the Wind, 2006

Martyn Bates & Max Eastley

• Songs of Transformation, 2007

References