Bailter Space

Alister Parker raw transcript



Hey, how you doing.

You'll have to describe this terminology. Oh the swan, you mean like death.

This is a Bailter Space gig on a CD, made from a selection, like a setlist, and taken into a mastering studio with some equipment. We went around the city looking for certain bits of gear, then we plugged it in and went wild. So that's what this is, it's like a performance of those pieces.

We had a couple of different studios that we rigged up with gears, and we've recorded like a swag of material, and we're still actually working on getting a space to collaborate and go through what we've recorded. But that's like an ongoing thing, and for the moment what we have is this CD with remastered songs that we've lifted off other CDs. And some of them have been mastered extensively, like we really put the equipment to test in the mastering studio, and treated it sort of like a mixing environment. Others, we just did little tweaks, and I remember loving that tone or frequency when we actually did the mix for the album, and now it's back! You know, that kind of stuff.

(so you're still getting together from time to time?)
I imagine, that's been the case for a long time and it was fun doing some edits for this recording together, and just sitting in front of our console and messing with these tunes. Even at that point we were listening to some of our new material as well. For the moment this is what we've decided to do.

We started off a few years ago making this sort of re-shuffle of songs on different records. We ended up with like 5 albums with versions and things. We have this list, and then we thought we'd aim at making it like a setlist, a long set and we'll flow one song to the next, and create a mood and run with a thing. We worked a long time on this record actually, we were working on it pretty intensely for a number of weeks.

I believe he's over visiting at the moment, I haven't seen him in a few months. And I saw Brent like a little while ago.

The high points (laughs). Just the immersion into this sonic world, you know, with our instruments and our banding together, and our meeting together. There were so many high points it was almost perpetual at one point. Something that was so exciting.

I really like our new one, the one with the songs on it. That's what I've been listening to over and over, I'm really happy with it. It's enchanting and really interesting. It has some good sonic things happening on it that have like a billion layers. So I've been kind of immersed in that at the moment, and it touches on most of our records, and ones that were never released, and interesting pieces.

There's Glimmerdot which not a lot of people would have heard, and no one would have heard it this way cos we remastered it extensively. That was an Amphetamine Reptile release, a very raw version, which we started with. We started to plug things in and bring out what was there, and worked on that for quite some time. I'm kind of pleased with that. There's the alternative mix of Robot World, a special mix. Then there's a demo of At Five We Drive, like a formative version when we were writing it.

We've lived in a lot... I guess they impact on it. If we lived in NZ we were full of imagination, full of images of what urban society is like, I mean metropolis. And then when you're in Metropolis you dream of wide open space. So the affect is not totally about the place you're in, it's about the places you're not.

We were working together like artist, working with our instruments, and a knowledge of some things, and an experimentation of others. Taking things that exist and breaking them down and rebuilding them. So that's how it comes about I guess. We have an affinity, John and Brent and I to sort of be in a room and plug in this electrical equipment and seem to go straight to the zone together. That was something we experienced first in the Gordons, when we hadn't known each other a week then. It was very exciting feeling actually. You can imagine you've got certain things worked out, and they suddenly disappear and are replaced with something that you're not even familiar with, but it's very strong.

I rememebr we pressed our own records in the Gordons, and then we sold some units to Flying Nun. So we had our own label, it had the diver guy on it, Gordon 1. We would sell the record to stores, and then hand deliver them. We were touring around NZ quite a lot then, so it worked out we could be our own distribution company, shipping compant, contact whatever. We would go to the cutting room and test the cuts. It was an exciting experience, we didn't even consider looking for a record company. We just thought e have to make a record, we have to distribute and sell it you know.

I think it was, it came naturally. We were doing our own artwork and advertising, and putting our own shows on. It was without much forethought really, it was what we were into.

Not sure really. Something was just different. We didn't have to release through Flying Nun, and I think we just wanted to release through a whole lot of record companies at that point. We were trying different things. We met Murray and he seemed keen to do one, so we said we'll make you one then.

Initially we relocated here because we were touring in Europe, and we had a record deal with Matador in New York City, and they invitied us here. We had some touring work in the States to do, so we thought New York would be a good place to base ourselves. At that point in our career we could appropraite that and enjoy it, so we did it.

I'm fairly content with it still. I still find the city fascinating, very multi-leveled, like a point of civilisation that I'm observing before my eyes every day. It's a harsh environement, so I had to harden up a bit (laughs).

We're workign on some stuff musically, and I'm working with technology. Just using my knowledge of technical things to consult with people on. The idea there is that I have plenty of room in my life, so I don't have to fight to have the space to work on creative things, like music and photography.