Eyeless in Gaza at Marie Antoinette / Friday, 14.08.2015

Specializing in alternative pop/rock, post-punk, and art rock, the experimental British duo Eyeless in Gaza have enjoyed an enthusiastic cult following since the early 1980s. The music of Eyeless in Gaza has tended to be moody, quirky and atmospheric, drawing on influences that have ranged from Brian Eno, Pink Floyd and Pere Ubu to Roxy Music, David Bowie (especially Bowie’s Low/ Heroes/Lodger period of the late 1970s) and the seminal Kraftwerk.

Eyeless in Gaza experimented with electronics from the beginning, and they clearly admired Eno’s breakthroughs in the ambient electronic realm. Eyeless in Gaza got started in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England in 1980, when lead singer Martyn Bates joined forces with fellow multi-instrumentalist Peter Becker; they named their group after British author Aldous Huxley’s 1936 novel, which Bates was reading when he met Becker.

http://https://youtu.be/L16N5Q7t83I

Both of them have embraced a variety of instruments in Eyeless in Gaza; Bates has played keyboards, organ, guitar and drums (among other instruments), while Becker has contributed guitar (both electric and acoustic), bass, drums, percussion and melodica (in addition to helping with the vocals).

Last years release Mania Sour is an album that serves up a different twist on the soundworlds Eyeless in Gaza have inhabited of late – perhaps suggesting new parallels on the abrasive stylings displayed on the band’s early 80’s classic albums Photographs as Memories and Caught in Flux. Offering a glorious blend of uniquely Eyeless type e -guitars & full-on percussion, Mania Sour presents a brash, strident set of distinctively Bates/Becker style songs that snarl n’ soar with passion and bite.