Martyn Bates

Before, during, and after his partnership with Peter Becker in the early-'80s pop duo Eyeless in Gaza, Martyn Bates pursued a widely varied solo career that ranged from industrial noise to pop balladry to traditional British folk music, and by the late '90s, into a blend of ambient and post-minimalist modern classical music. Throughout it all, Bates has maintained a taste for experimentalism that only rarely overshadows the accessibility of his music. Born in 1960 and raised in a strict Methodist household in the small Midlands town of Nuneaton, England, Bates developed an interest in folk music through his uncle, who would take the youngster to concerts by legends of the British folk boom, like Martin Carthy and John Renbourn. By his late teens, Bates had moved from centuries-old folk to the cutting edge in post-punk noise. In 1979 and 1980, Bates recorded two self-released tapes, Dissonance and Antagonistic Music, under the apt band name the Migraine Inducers. The highlights of both tapes, aggressive industrial noise in the manner of early Throbbing Gristle, were later released on CD under Bates' own name. Although Eyeless in Gaza was a considerably less antagonistic project, a strong experimental streak ran through most of their releases. In 1982, about a third of the way through the duo's six-year career (they've enjoyed occasional collaborations since the mid-'90s), Bates released his first official solo record, the 10" EP Letters Written. A year after Eyeless in Gaza split up in 1986, Bates released his full-length solo debut, The Return of the Quiet. A continuation of the nearly commercial pop sound of the last Eyeless in Gaza album, Back From the Rains, The Return of the Quiet is an uncharacteristically soul-inflected dance pop record featuring a cover of Burt...