Bailter Space – Strobosphere

Strobosphere sees New Zealand indie-noise pioneers Bailter Space return, after a 13-year hiatus, to a markedly different musical landscape, in which neo-shoegazers like Deerhunter have honed new variants of guitar-based melodic noise. It’s all the more remarkable, then, that the quartet’s sound is still utterly distinctive. The secret lies in simplicity: where Bailter Space’s successors have developed an increasingly intricate, multilayered variant of 90s underground rock, Strobosphere retains faith in the emotional power of walls of dreamy, unprocessed ringing guitars.

Opener Things That We Found is essentially centred around an addictive two-note riff, while Blue Star buries the vocals beneath an avalanche of My Bloody Valentine-style atonal chords. Strobosphere, in fact, could easily have been made twenty years ago; and yet, the richness of Bailter Space’s sound has endured, such that its rugged simplicity actually serves to set them apart from their more technically-minded followers. A triumphant return.