Eyeless in Gaza (band)


Eyeless In Gaza are an English musical duo of Martyn Bates and Peter Becker, based in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. They have described their music as "veer crazily from filmic ambiance to rock and pop, industrial funk to avant-folk styles." Formed in 1980, the group went into hiatus in 1987, re-emerging in 1993.

History

Becker, a laboratory technician, had played in a covers band before buying and experimenting with a Wasp synthesizer. Bates, a hospital worker, had previously been in a very early lineup of the unclassifiable Coventry-based band Reluctant Stereotypes, and also released a cassette of experimental electronic music in 1979. Shortly afterwards they met and together they formed Eyeless In Gaza, both contributing vocals and several instruments. The band name is a reference to the novel Eyeless in Gaza by Aldous Huxley. Bates has said he chose the name "for the sound of it.... I was reading the Huxley book when I met Pete.... It sounded perfectly nice." But Bates has also acknowledged an allusion to the "biblical myth" of Samson, saying, "I feel attracted by religion. I feel that people don’t pay enough attention to the spiritual side of their life; it is a very interesting side of the human psychism and it fascinates me."
After a self-released single, Kodak Ghosts Run Amok, they signed to Cherry Red Records, releasing debut album Photographs as Memories in February 1981. The duo became known for their unconventional instrumentation and arrangements, and for Bates passionate vocals, which at times were howled, whispered, or stammered. Their second album, Caught in Flux, included a bonus five track EP and at the end of 1981 they had completed their third, Pale Hands I Loved So Well, which subsequently was released by the Norwegian label Uniton. In 1981 they also released two singles, Invisibility and Others. In addition to their vinyl releases the duo also performed numerous songs in live concerts which were never released on records.
After two further albums for Cherry Red, Drumming the Beating Heart and Rust Red September, they added Aztec Camera drummer Dave Ruffy for the more pop-oriented single "Welcome Now", recruiting former Sinatras/In Embrace drummer Joby Palmer for the next album, Back from the Rains. They toured with Depeche Mode in 1986.
The group then went on hiatus after Becker married and temporarily relocated to Spain, with Bates concentrating on solo work. They reunited in 1990 to collaborate on a new Eyeless In Gaza epic, Glow of Sight, for inclusion at the end of Bates’ last Belgian solo album, Stars Come Trembling. Bates and Becker went directly from this to collaborate with Anne Clark on her album The Law Is an Anagram of Wealth and later also on To Love & Be Loved. In 1991 Bates formed Hungry I with former Primitives bassist/guitarist Steve Dullahan.
They returned in 1993 for the Fabulous Library album and have regularly released records since, as both a duo and trio. Bates also recorded three albums of Murder Ballads between 1994 and 1998 with M.J. Harris, and from the early 2000s continued to unravel an ongoing sequence of albums with arcane musician Alan Trench in Twelve Thousand Days. He has also continued to release solo albums. In 2012, Martyn Bates and Peter Becker appeared on "Right North", the eleventh album, a double digipack, of the international collective 48 Cameras.
In 2016, the 2CD compilation Picture the Day: A Career Retrospective 1981–2016 and Eyeless In Gaza's eightheenth album Sun Blues was released to positive reviews. The latter album was given four stars out of five in Mojo magazine and another critic, reviewing both releases, wrote: "It takes some time to truly ‘hear’ the layers and complexities of this album, in the same way it takes time to grasp the width, breath and achievement of Eyeless In Gaza’s musical history. But time spent will be rewarded: Eyeless In Gaza remain one of the most accomplished and interesting bands to have emerged from the music-making underground post punk and postpunk."

Discography

Albums

;Compilations: