I love the fact that music exists as a method to help someone lose themselves within it or to create and channel things like love, rage, nihilism and nostalgia to produce sounds that could live on forever. I especially love the fact that Martyn Bates is still out there in the shadows creating music, by himself or with a variety of others, that makes me feel like it’s just for me. Well, by writing this review I am hoping that it will spark a lot of you to check these albums out, listen and think to yourself, “Is this music just for me?”
Martyn Bates is not a stranger on the scene. He’s been out there since the 1970’s, either in the spotlight as part of one of his bands or as a guest amongst others. Ask anyone familiar with Martyn what they think about first when his name is uttered and I will bet you 9 times out of 10 they will say, “His voice”. The other person will probably say, “I owe him a pint”. The man sings like an angel. If you need any proof of this, find Anne Clark’s live album, Psycometry and cue up his a capella track, ‘Swallow Song’. If that doesn’t bring you to tears, you have no soul. He pours it out. Every album, every time. It’s pure magick.
Nowadays, he focuses on his project with buddy Alan Trench called Twelve Thousand Days (shortened hereafter to 12kD) and his solo venture Kodax Strophes with the occasional dalliance with Sorry For Laughing, Francesco Paladino and others. The band that he’s probably most noted for , Eyeless in Gaza, are still around, jamming in his living room from time to time. When will a new album be out for them? That’s a story for another time perhaps.
There are 2 albums that I will be discussing here as they were both released at practically the same time; Kodax Strophes’, Christ In The House Of Martha & Mary on Bates’ own Hive-Arc imprint and the new 12kD album, ‘They Have All Gone Into The World Of Light. They have a couple of threads that tie them together but honestly, two very distinct presences.
From the Kodax Strophes Bandcamp page Martyn says, ‘Christ In The House Of Martha & Mary’ isn’t a ‘concept album’, far from it – it’s just a collection of the latest music & words that I’ve been working on, of course”. He also states, “On one level, “Christ In The House Of Martha & Mary” is such a personal work that I hesitate to try & explain something of just what’s going on behind the covers of the Velazquez painting wrapped around this album. The scope of the thing is huge, so putting aside the “obvious” notion of the spiritual vs the material, I’m going to focus on just one of the central metaphors at play here : radio . The album is framed in a life journey story, if you will – sliding backwards & forwards on time tracks.” Intrigued? You should be.
The album begins with ‘Signal’ which is a brief few pulses of some sort of fanfare channeled from somewhere. Then it sounds as if the radio has warmed up and a frequency is locked in for the next track, ‘Little Cats / Spirits’ which starts life as a playful guitar piece. Then the vocal comes in a bit distant and distorted. Have the tubes warmed up enough on the radio? Some bursts of static, more ghostly EVP’s are heard, radio interference gives way to clear heavenly voices chanting, before the signal is lost. Damn.
‘Prescient’ is the first piece with actual lyrics. Prescient of course meaning, “having or showing knowledge of events before they take place”, however, this newer piece of music is laid over an older piece by Martyn from an obscure compilation album called ‘Nascent Fragrance of Skin’. A truly chilling piece that made me think, “Did he envision this track whilst recording ‘Nascent’? Were both going through his head at the same time? Precient perhaps?
‘The Good Luck Book’ is like a fever dream of childhood. It seems to swirl with the long sustained notes in Martyn’s singing. Disembodied voices sing high over the main lyric like hazy memory of a dream you just woke up from and have trouble placing.
‘Skulls’ appeared on the first Kodax Strophes album, It Doesn’t Matter Where It’s Solstice When You’re In The Room in a much more distorted, thumping, electronic nightmare version (as a song called Skulls should be), but here it is an echo filled, distorted, thumping, acoustic cacophony. Here the words are way more up front though and not as nightmarish as I make it sound. It’s like remembering going to a ballet as a child and amidst the beauty, it’s that one arcane piece that you pick up on, somewhere in the background, that stays with you.
Immediately you will place the song, ‘Flowers’, as the old Pete Seeger classic, ‘Where Have all The Flowers Gone?’. A majority of the piece is a capella with some repeating piano lines even now and then pulled from the ether. Once the lament is over it feels as if a rush of blood goes to your head, pounding a bit, then slowly subsiding giving peace.
Forgotten memories of childhood that you can still vaguely remember call out on, ‘The Dancing Master’. The final verse wraps up the sentiment of what’s sung before beautifully, “that was the day – this is the day – and the day is known’, as if to remind oneself, “I got this”. The chill of the whistle (“a humble flageolet” as Martyn described it to me) appears about halfway through the track and always makes me feel so happy and makes me think of my own vague memory of childhood, but I can’t place the day.
‘Test Transmission 2 / Call Sign‘ splits the album, as again the fanfare pulses hit the air but this time more space between them. More silence is there. What are we in for?
A minimal version of ‘It Doesn’t Matter Where It’s Solstice When You’re In The Room’ begins with it’s sawtooth keyboard, pulsing out the theme. If you are familiar with the song of the same title from the album of the same name by Kodax Strophes, you can tell immediately the difference, but for those who do not, this is a bare bones track compared to it’s predecessor. The droning, in a good way mind you, gives a sense of longing and reflection. It makes your mind wander back through the cobwebs and god knows what you may find.
An a capella tune ‘Cadar Idris’ (originally written by Benjamin Britten and titled ‘Cuckoo’) replete with echoing voices calling back to the main vocal line is chilling. Known as a mountain in Wales and infamous for the rock seat called, “The Seat of Prince Idris”, where lore has it that anyone who spends the night alone on the mountain will either die, become insane or become a poet. The parallel between the simple sing-song lyrics of Suffolk born Britten to the mountain of madness in Wales is anyone’s guess, but the song is elegantly sung.
The title track begins simply enough with guitar double tracked playing against each other with Martyn’s silky voice singing what appears to be a love song to his wife, Elizabeth. “You are the place now, the peace now for me. And you are loving, you release me from sleep.” Romantic and elegant in execution until this ghostly backward sound (guitar perhaps?) begins playing over the sweet tune. Interference through the radio perhaps?
Another call sign calls to us from the radio in the form of, ‘Untitled 1970’, until the signal is clear and ‘Kashmiri Love Song’ is belted out by famous Irish tenor, John McCormak. This is the actual recording of his with no interference from Bates, but the lyrics are significant to him. The 1940 recordings first line, “Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar” harkens back to the masterpiece Eyeless in Gaza album, Pale Hands I Loved So Well giving that thread to some substance to his personal journey through the album.
Capping off the album is ‘Kodaxcoda’ which is a song in a blender. ‘Prescient’ begins playing. Then we get our familiar call sign playing over the top along with some radio interference noise. To my ears I aslo hear cloaked nods to the aforementioned “Pale Hands” album. The sticks tapping reminds me slightly of those found in ‘Tall and White Nettles’, the reverbed, echoey beat makes me think of ‘Tall and White Nettles’. It all calms to ambient noise with the call sign bleeding out a few more times with fiddle very faintly in the background. One more fumble of the dial to tune in for more clarity until it all just fades away.
As a fan of Bates’ work going back decades, this is such a puzzle of a thousand pieces. Each listen makes you wonder, knowing this is such a personal work, how it all fits to build the picture of the artist as a whole. As a casual listener, I think you will marvel at the diversity of sound and texture. The mystery behind a story that may or may not be there. Above all else, you will hear the beauty of someone who for years and years has put themselves out there on a plate for all to consume and the lucky few have and will always come back for more.
Moving on now to an album that pre-dates ‘Christ’ by a mere 11 days, is, They Have All Gone Into The World Of Light by the duo of Martyn Bates and Alan Trench (also of Temple Music, Orchis, Black Lesbian Fisherman and many others) better known as Twelve Thousand Days. Their first album was relased in 2000 and remains a classic in the Folk/Neofolk/Wyrd Folk vein. “World of Light” is their eighth album and, dare I say, one of their best. It is based on works by Jan Mankes and William Blake but I am not for one minute going to try and fool you dear reader into thinking I know where to pick these influences from by mea mory. I’m not that well read, but I am thankful that these artists influenced out duo to make such lush and rattling work.
Uncharacteristically, the album begins with Alan on lead vocal duty covering ‘The Werewolf (For Vassili)‘, by Michael Hurley. Having never heard the original, I have no basis of comparison but this needs none. Any cover 12KD do is morphed into a tune that is all their own. The guitar is accompanied by some eerie ambient background drone, a small hint of fiddle and female vocal accompaniment and Alan’s mournful vocal cast such drama that it makes sense why this is the lead track. It perfectly sets the stage for the tone going forward.
The other cover song, ‘Evenings of Damask’ was originally done by T. Rex as a rather bluesy tune. Here, Martyn sings it a capella with just the ringing of some bells in the background only providing sound and not a rhythm. It still retains some of the original spirit, but is made wholly his own with the minimal arrangement.
They are also not strangers to grabbing the odd traditional song and bending them to their will and here is no exception with two songs, ‘The Bitter Withy’ and ‘The Keys Of Canterbury’. ‘The Bitter Withy’ with it’s dulcimer, acoustic guitar and whistle (ah, that whistle that I dearly love) is so smooth in it’s delivery and gorgeous in tone. As previously stated, I don’t claim to know much about the influences surrounding the album so for context this song according to Wikipedia is, “an English folk song reflecting an unusual and apocryphal vernacular idea of Jesus Christ. The withy of the title is the Willow and the song gives an explanation as to why the willow tree rots from the centre out, rather than the outside in.” It is essentially a Murder Ballad where Christ as a child wants to go play. He runs into three well-born kids who brag that because of their status, they are above him and will not play. Then in an, “I’ll show them who’s truly higher”, he builds a bridge made from sunlight and crosses a body of water. When the three attempt to follow him they all fall into the water and drown. When his mother finds out what has happened, she grabs a handful of withy, puts him across her knee and gives him three swats. The child then proclaims that the withy that causes him to ‘smart’ will be the first tree to die from within.
‘The Keys Of Canterbury’ is lyrically nowhere near as deep as ‘The Bitter Withy’. This is a song of proposal, rejection and ultimately the marriage of a couple. Bates is taking the voice of both the male and female characters within meanwhile the music plays in psychedelic bliss to the story.
The title track lyrics are taken from the 17th century Welsh poet, author and physician, Henry Vaughn. Not exactly a “traditional” song but the use of an early poets words as lyrics harkens back to Bates setting the works of Joyce, Rilke, Yeats and others to music. The result being a gloriously melencholy meditation of life, death and afterlife set to a simple arrangement of electric and acoustic guitar strums, Mellotron strings and the slowly sung musing of the ancient text.
Now to discuss the wholly original compositions, we’ll begin with ‘I’m Not the Stranger’ with it’s somewhat bluesy feel and tinkling percussion. A very straightforward song except for the digeridoo-esque underline that gives a very unique aspect to an otherwise unambiguous tune.
‘Five and Six and Seven’ to me appears to be some sort of parable. A beautifully moving work of guitar and organ, with lyrics as cryptic as ancient myths can sometimes be, rife with symbolism. “Char and burn the elder tree” begins the chorus of the song, which refers to the old belief that if the elder wood is burned you can see the devil. Planting an elder tree, however, keeps the devil at bay. In the last verse he sings, “The golden bladed sun will slay the morning star” which to my mind refers to the sword of god as the golden bladed sun slaying Lucifer, sometimes referred to as the morning star. How the title fits into the tale is still a mystery to me.
Written more as a fable than an allegory, ‘My Golden Bird the Sun’ is a fuzzed out, dazzling story of sunrise and sunset or maybe on the deeper level birth and death. Alan’s guitar work here takes center stage with it’s blistering psychedelics. The sound of the whistle toward the end rings with exquisite charm.
‘Four Rode’ is an ethereal tale of four riders each asking the target for something that they are not willing to give. The cavernous sound in the background along with the theremin lend an eerie frame to this picture. This reminds me of Bates’ work with Mick Harris or Troum or Max Eastley. A dark ambient work that is otherworldly save for the shining vocal delivery.
The calmness of ‘Your Beauty’, with it’s simple piano and guitar strum, is somewhat deceiving. The meditative groove is suddenly upended by Alan’s backward, Hendrix-esque guitar. But as quickly as it arrives, it’s gone and we’re back to the hypnotic imprint where we began. It sounds on paper like it shouldn’t work, but if you are familiar with the band, this fits so well to the overall composition and gives contrast and edge to an otherwise straightforward song.
Finally, ‘The Green Wood’ is perhaps the outlier track for it’s very traditional feel of a folk-rock song. Instead of acoustic guitar as the main stringed instrument the use of the traditional Greek instrument the tzouras is used to great effect. The percussion layers of hand drums, bougara mixed with jingle stick and tamborine lend to the celebratory feel of the song. Mellotron strings are again used to great advantage to give sunshine to the gathering, not to mention it’s again Alan’s guitar here that is as emotive as any David Gilmour solo. This is my song of the album as it is so uplifting and superbly executed.
You are always guaranteed at the end of any album by this pair to feel like you have just been on a journey to an England of the past. The atmosphere they produce is unlike any other band I can think of. It’s pure magick the way they evoke emotion and inner artwork through every instrument, through every melody and rhythm and rhyme. An exceptional album that I hope you take the journey through. To say it’s worth it is to minimize the impact you will feel. To listen is an experience and not just an event.
