Martyn Bates (born 1960) is an English singer, musician and songwriter. Bates grew up listening to English

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...

before as a teenager becoming excited by

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

, getting involved in the more diverse and experimental

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-roc ...

scene. After releasing tapes of experimental,

industrial music Industrial music is a genre of music that draws on harsh, mechanical, transgressive or provocative sounds and themes. AllMusic defines industrial music as the "most abrasive and aggressive fusion of rock and electronic music" that was "initiall ...

as Migraine Inducers he formed Eyeless In Gaza with Peter Becker in January 1980.Martyn Bates biography
Eyelessingaza.com The duo became known for their unconventional instrumentation and arrangements, and for Bates’s passionate vocals, which at times were whispered, howled, or stammered. Eyeless In Gaza released six albums on

Cherry Red Records Cherry Red Records is a British independent record label founded in Malvern, Worcestershire by Iain McNay in 1978. The label has released recordings by Dead Kennedys, Everything But the Girl, The Monochrome Set, and Felt, among others, as well ...

. These were ''

Photographs as Memories ''Photographs as Memories'' is the debut studio album by English band Eyeless in Gaza. It was released on 30 January 1981, through record label Cherry Red. Track listing Reception ''Photograps as Memories'' received mixed reviews on ...

'' (1981), ''

Caught in Flux ''Caught in Flux'' is the second album by English band Eyeless in Gaza, recorded in February, 1981, and released in September, 1981 by record label Cherry Red. It was recorded in one take with no overdubs at Woodbine Recording Studios Leamingto ...

'' (1981), ''

Pale Hands I Loved So Well ''Pale Hands I Loved So Well'' is the third album by English band Eyeless in Gaza, released in 1982 by record label Uniton. Reception AllMusic called it "arguably the highlight of the band's earliest days" and "a delicate, focused, and impa ...

'' (1982), ''

Drumming the Beating Heart ''Drumming the Beating Heart'' is the fourth album by English band Eyeless in Gaza, released in 1982 by record label Cherry Red. Content Regarding the album's style, AllMusic wrote that the album "finds the Nuneaton duo fashioning their sto ...

'' (1982), ''

Rust Red September ''Rust Red September'' is the fifth album by English band Eyeless in Gaza, released in 1983 by record label Cherry Red. This was the first recording where Eyeless In Gaza employed overdubs, as all their previous releases were recorded in one ta ...

'' (1983) and '' Back from the Rains'', and then went on hiatus until 1992. Picking up from 1982’s acclaimed '' Letters Written'' (1982) solo album, Bates then concentrated mostly on solo work for a while, going on to collaborate with Anne Clark (Just After Sunset 1998) – also starting the short-lived bands Cry Acetylene Angel, Hungry I, and The Sing Circus (with

This Mortal Coil This Mortal Coil were a British music collective led by Ivo Watts-Russell, founder of the British record label 4AD. Although Watts-Russell and John Fryer were the only two official members, the band's recorded output featured a large rotating ...

’s Deirdre Rutkowski). He contributed to Derek Jarman's soundtracks ''The Garden'' and ''The Last of England''. Then he temporarily relocated his main focus to Europe, releasing three solo albums on the Belgian based Antler Subway label – ''Love Smashed on a Rock'' (1988), ''Letters to a Scattered Family'' (1990) and ''Stars Come Trembling'' (1990), which musically offered initial glimpses of the acoustic folk roots of his youth. In 1993, Bates began working with former

Napalm Death Napalm Death are an English grindcore band formed in 1981 in Meriden, West Midlands. None of the band's original members has been in the group since 1986. But since ''Utopia Banished'' (1992), the lineup of bassist Shane Embury, guitarist Mitch ...

drummer

Mick Harris Michael John Harris (born 4 October 1967) is an English musician from Birmingham. He was the drummer for Napalm Death between 1985 and 1991, and is credited for coining the term "grindcore". After Napalm Death, Harris joined Painkiller with Joh ...

, collaborating on a three album series of ''Murder Ballads'', creating an innovative marriage of “isolationist” ambience with folk-song form. In the same time frame Bates created a virtually acapella work – a two volume series of “song-settings” of

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

's ''

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numb ...

Chamber Music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numb ...

'' cycle of 36 poems (released in 1994 and 1996). From 1992 onwards, Bates has run a parallel career recording and performing with a re-vitalised Eyeless In Gaza – with Eyeless deftly blending song with collaged soundscaping - while Bates otherwise continues to develop his own intense and possibly autobiographical solo work. Bates’s solo outings of particular note include the albums '' Imagination Feels Like Poison'' (1997), '' Arriving Fire'' (2014), and '' I Said To Love'' (2018). As Twelve Thousand Days, since 2000 Bates has also worked with

Orchis ''Orchis'' is a genus in the orchid family (Orchidaceae), occurring mainly in Europe and Northwest Africa, and ranging as far as Tibet, Mongolia, and Xinjiang. The name is from the Ancient Greek ὄρχις ''orchis'', meaning "testicle", from t ...

Temple Music A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

/ Nurse With Wound collaborator Alan Trench - producing five albums of “channelled wyrd folk, psych-musics & other curios”, including the forthcoming album '' Field’s End'' (2020). Bates is the author of five books of “lyrics to songs heard and unheard, and other gathered miscellany”.

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 *''Port of Stormy Lights'' (Sordide Sentimental, booklet by J.P. Turmel with CD), 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 *''I Said to Love'', 2017 ;Books *''Imagination Feels Like Poison'', 1997 *''Plague of Years'', 2000 *''A Map of the Stars in Summer'', 2008 *''Notes on Mythic Language'', 2015 *''November: Inky Blue Sky'', 2015 ;Anne Clark & Martyn Bates *''Just After Sunset – The Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke'', 1998 ;Martyn Bates & M.J. Harris *''Murder Ballads (Drift)'', 1994 *''Murder Ballads (Passages)'', 1997 *''Murder Ballads (Incest Songs)'', 1998 ;Twelve Thousand Days (Martyn Bates & Alan Trench) *''In the Garden of Wild Stars'', 2000 *''The Devil in the Grain'', 2001 *''At the Landgate'', CD-Ep 2005 *''From the Walled Garden'', 2006 *''Insect Silence'', 2018 *''The Birds Sing as Bells, 2022 ;Martyn Bates & Troum *''To a Child Dancing in the Wind'', 2006 ;Martyn Bates & Max Eastley *''Songs of Transformation'', 2007 ;Sorry For Laughing (Gordon H. Whitlow/Ed Ka-Spel/Martyn Bates) * ''See It Alone'', 2020 * ''Remember, You Are An Actor'', 2021 as KODAX STROPHES/MARTYN BATES *It Doesnt Matter Where It's Solstice When You're In The Room , 2020 *Post-War Baby , 2021

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bates, Martyn English male singer-songwriters English male musicians British post-punk musicians 1960 births Living people