#bailterspace

9:52 AM EST December 6, 2025:

Bailterspace - "Retro" From the album Wammo (March 21, 1995)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

Flying Nun released the album in New Zealand on the date shown. Matador would release it in the States on May 23rd.

--

Bailterspace - Bailterspace

Wammo by Bailterspace

Wammo is Bailterspace’s “pop” album, though only in relative terms.  The band, known for sprawling, droning, noisy guitar experiments, had always had ties to New Zealand’s lo-fi jangle community — Hamish Kilgour played on the first album, Nesh Bailter Space — and certainly stray bits of tunefulness radiated through the earlier, Flying Nun albums like Tanker, Grader Spader and even Thermos. But Wammo takes it further, putting melody in the forefront, though without diluting its raucous, prickly, feedback-blistered rock underpinnings much. If you’re looking for a Bailterspace album to sing in the shower, this is the one.  

11/25/20.

Yes!  I was hoping The Gordons (Christchurch, New Zealand) would be reissued.  I sold my Flying Nun copy of this years ago (stupid me!) and have regretted it since.  Members of The Gordons went on to form Bailterspace.  The lineage is easy to hear.  This also recalls the solo work of Hamish Kilgour.  And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention clear nods to The Fall and early Pere Ubu.

1972 Records (Oakland, California) is reissuing this.  The Bandcamp page states:

“The Gordons LP, which followed in 1981, matches the abandon with motorik churn and livewire dissonance, evoking New Zealand antecedents as divergent as This Kind of Punishment and the Dead C. Brought together on this release, they’re a noise-rock landmark anticipating fans such as Sonic Youth.”

10:38 AM EST January 31, 2025:

Bailterspace - "Colours" From the album bailterspace (2004)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

A best-of compilation with some alternate versions produced by Flying Nun exclusively for the New Zealand market. Except that it doesn't contain anything from Solar.3 (which wasn't a Flying Nun record), this is an excellent overview of the band through the beginning of their hiatus in 2000.

I actually ordered a physical copy of this from a distributorship in Christchurch, and they shipped me one to the La Historia World HQ here in South Florida. It's the longest-distance mail order transaction I've ever made, and close to the longest any two parties can make. If the distance were any further, it'd be closer in the opposite direction.

First released on Wammo, from 1995

--

6:03 PM EST January 14, 2025:

Bailterspace - "LUNA (Heavy Sample)" From the Digital EP Newspaperman (December 1, 2023)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm