FEYELESS IN GAZA

The British avant-pop duo Eyeless in Gaza was formed in 1980, with Martyn Bates (guitar, vocals) and Peter Becker (bass, keyboards, vocals) taking their official name from an Aldous Huxley novel. Sometimes tightly melodic with dramatic vocals, sometimes improvisational and comparatively directionless, Eyeless in Gaza debuted in 1981 with the LP Photographs as Memories. Later that year, Caught in Flux refined their approach while reigning in some of the over-the-top emotion. 1982's Pale Hands I Loved So Well introduced the meandering improvisational side of the group's work, but the same year's Drumming the Beating Heart tightened things up once again, although the vocal melodrama was still present. Eyeless in Gaza grew more reflective, ethereal, and straightforward with such albums as Rust Red September (1983) and Back from the Rains (1986), but Becker quit in 1987, leaving Bates to begin a brief solo career (he also worked briefly with Deidre Rutkowski of This Mortal Coil and Scorn's Mick Harris). Meanwhile, the Eyeless in Gaza archives were cleaned out with a series of compilations: Kodak Ghosts Run Amok (1987) collected singles from 1980-1986; Transience Blues (1989) gathered rarities and outtakes; Orange Ice and Wax Crayons (1992) unearthed archival material from 1981-1985; and Voice (1993) served as a best-of retrospective.
Becker and Bates reunited to work with Anne Clark in 1992 and elected to re-form Eyeless in Gaza; the band's reincarnation has proven just as prolific as the first go-round. The reunited pair's first release was 1993's Fabulous Library, which featured vocals from chanteuse Elizabeth S. 1994's limited-edition Saw You in Reminding Pictures was a return to the unstructured improvisational format, with a companion EP, Streets I Ran, coming out in early 1995. Later that year, the group returned to song-oriented material with Bitter Apples, continuing those ideas on 1996's All Under the Leaves, the Leaves of Life.

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