Tom Varner

Martian Heartache is a 1996 studio album by French horn player and composer Tom Varner, released by Soul Note in 1997. Varner wrote every piece except the closing traditional song, and he leads a quintet with two saxophones, a front line of French horn, alto and tenor. The fifteen tracks swing between miniatures of under a minute and pieces of ten or eleven. AllMusic's discography places it after The Mystery Of Compassion of 1992, Varner's previous Soul Note album, in a discography that goes back to Tom Varner Quartet in 1980, Motion/Stillness in 1982 and Jazz French Horn in 1985.

The session took place on March 5 and 6, 1996 at Tedesco Studios in New Jersey, recorded and mixed by Jon Rosenberg, with Varner as producer and cover designer and John Corbett writing the liner notes. The band is Ed Jackson on alto saxophone, Ellery Eskelin on tenor, Drew Gress on bass and Tom Rainey on drums, with guitarist Pete McCann and singer Dominique Eade as guests. The titles set the tone, from Nuke 'Em Tony and Venus With A Syringe to Isaac Has A Vision On The Subway. Short fragments such as Precarious Dog, Send Me A Probe and the 36-second Anxiety All The Time work as interludes between the longer compositions. The longest is Small Cry Big Laugh, at eleven minutes, and Eva Etc. runs past ten. At the end Eade sings Lady Gay, a traditional song in Varner's arrangement.

This is the Soul Note CD 121286-2, first released in 1997.