WHEN Richard Brautigan, probably the greatest American writer of the
last 30 years, died in 1984, all the obituaries could find to say about
him was The Beatles were fans of his. Praise by association
must be niggling Martyn Bates these days, as one half of Eyeless In Gaza
who produced at least two stellar albums in the early Eighties, but are
now chiefly remembered for writing a song that The Pale Saints named themselves
after.
Last years Love Smashed On A Rock saw Bates on his
best form for some while, a collection of magical folk-based love songs
that became a much fawned-over item in Belgium, Germany and parts of darkest
Croydon. On Letters To A Scattered Family Martyn has stuck
with the same producer, Paul Sampson of Primitives fame, and taken the
best part of Love Smashed, twisted and distorted them, and
come up with something seven times better. This time the folk undercoat
has been overlaid with a mixture of musical styles so varied its
positively schizophrenic.
The troubadour approach is still evident of much of Letters;
City All Of Strangers is straight from Parsley Sage
Rosemary And Thyme, while For Love, Waiting To Die lightens
the downbeat lyric with some singularly pretty Christmas bells. Elsewhere
its a very different story, Snow Rages is huge, a six-and-a-half
minute opus with shifting tectonic plates of phased guitars, psychotic
harmonica, and an Oriental music box of a verse. Your Jewelled Footsteps
is more bizarre still: a pneumatic drill rhythm section lurks beneath
a looming black cloud of a melody that mutates into a chorus reminiscent
of Paul Ankas Diana. The most incredible thing about
this juxtaposing of musical genre and instruments as diverse as clarinet,
banjo and feedback is that it works.
Two things hold the songs in place. Sampsons production on the
last LP tended towards black and white passages of apocalyptic guitar
not always sitting easily alongside pitterpat acoustics, but on Letters
hes blurred the edges, softened the joins so that the pieces fall
perfectly into place. Secondly theres Martyn Bates voice while
far removed from the sandpaper-in-the-brain wailing of early Eyeless its
still remarkably intense, a compelling instrument. Simply, it oozes emotion.
Martyn Bates has carved himself a niche in music so distinctive yet so
out on a limb that its hard to pinpoint who Letters To A Scattered
Family will appeal to, There are links with masters like Tim Buckley
and Laura Nyro, possibly Wilder period Cope, obvious elements
of Eyeless In Gaza. But on a song as moonstruck, melodic and moving as
Ill Wrap Your Hopes there are no comparisons necessary.
The Pale Saints are fans. So am I, and you need this record.
by Bob Stanley