The need for healing: An interview with Martyn Bates

Martyn Bates is currently ‘semi-retired’ from performing, although he continues to be active as both a songwriter and solo artist, plus working as of the influential post-punk duo Eyeless in Gaza (with Peter Becker). Author of three books of lyrics (A Map Of The Stars In Summer (2008), Plague of Years (1997), Imagination Feels like Poison (1996)), Bates continues to create new work – with a slew of both new and archive material currently being readied for release on his own ‘fiercely independent – to the point of invisibility’ imprint Ambivalent Scale Recordings. Bates also works in conjunction with the former architect of World Serpent Distribution, Alan Trench – ‘Twelve Thousand Days’ – with Trench producing Bates’ Spring 2014 released solo album Arriving Fire. Among a slew of genre defying musics, Martyn Bates has also produced three pioneering albums (Drift, Passages and Incest Songs) of ‘isolationist’ folk song stylings with Napalm Death originator Mick Harris.