I feel like repetition is an undermentioned concept when it comes to discussing what makes for enjoyable music. If I hear something in a song that sounds nice, it can be nice to hear it multiple times. The repetition of a movement-inducing drum pattern or funky bassline allows us to get deeper and deeper into a groove. A recurring drum fill or vocal sample may act as a periodical hook. A catchy vocal melody and/or chanted phrase maintained over a few lines makes for an infectious chorus. Hearing a rapper lock into an intoxicating cadence and flow can make for a great verse that you wish would go on forever.
Repetition is a large part of why I like a lot of loop-based music. Hearing a few bars of music stretch out and then fold back into its beginning is fantastic when structured around a solid core. I think of the curational production of beatmakers like The Alchemist and Jay Versace, who have a knack for picking out the most incredible samples, and letting them ride out with minimal interference or additional input. Or DJ Screw’s genius in applying his chopped and screwed technique to UGK’s “One Day”, stretching it into a 15 minute odyssey, and letting the slowed and throwed sample of The Isley Brothers “Ain’t I Been Good to You” slowly pour over for 3 minutes before the drums finally hit with the most rapturous effect.
Part of what makes repetition so powerful is that it makes any variation within the composition, as small as it may be, feel so much more impactful. The resolution of tension, built through a house cut, that is delivered by the off-beat open hi-hats swinging after the drop never fails to satisfy. Just when you thought the steady steamrolling churn of Godflesh’s “Avalanche Master Song” couldn’t get any nastier, in comes the march of the hi hat on the downbeat to further power up the mechanical sludge machine. Maybe you add that one sound in, then you take it out, and then you bring it back and it sounds twice as nice the second time around. Or maybe every sixteen bars you keep bringing in one new element over top of everything. But regardless of whether variation occurs or not, if you’ve got a nice loop, it’ll usually take a long long time before I tire of listening to it.
When it comes to the band that most closely embodies one of my ideals for hypnotic repetitious music, Barnard’s Star currently is a top contender. Barnard’s Star was a band based in Christchurch, New Zealand that was active from 1996-2002. Originally conceived as an idea by guitarists Marcus Winstanley and Nick Guy while studying at Canterbury University, the two would eventually be joined by bassist Helen Greenfield and drummer Frazer Talbot.
A shift in the band would occur when Talbot left the group and was replaced by Tyrone Thorn during the recording of their second single Miasma Helena. Thorn’s background in electronic music allowed the foursome to take a more production-oriented approach to their songwriting. The band’s earliest releases are described by thebigcity as having a sparse minimalist sound. (I’d love to be able to elaborate, but I haven’t yet been able to track down copies of either release online), but by the time they released their self-titled EP in 1999, the group had settled in on a dense spellbindingly atmospheric sound that continued early experiments in combining shoegaze, post-rock, and electronic music, and foreshadowed further developments in this genre-melding.
New Zealand has a rich history of DIY music culture, and many of its features can be heard tangentially in the works of Barnard’s Star. One of its most notable developments is the Dunedin sound, consisting largely of bands signed to Flying Nun Records in the 80s and 90s who released records that were “typically marked by the use of droning or jangling guitars, indistinct vocals and often copious quantities of reverberation” and recorded with low fidelity means.
Some of these bands, such as JPS Experience and The 3Ds, injected this ramshackle guitar pop sound with noisy psychedelia. JPS and Bailter Space, in particular, were influenced by My Bloody Valentine and created their own brand of swirled textural shoegaze. Bailter Space blended psychedelic etherealness with their earlier noisy post-punk edge, and their heavier rougher shoegaze garnered them enough buzz to land a deal with the US-based Matador Records.
Beyond the pop/rock-oriented side of New Zealand indie, there were also several notable acts making guitar-based music with a more experimental edge. The Dead C broke away from the Dunedin sound and carved out a career of releases characterized by raw feedback-heavy noise-rock drone. Roy Montgomery, who would share stages with Barnard’s Star and later collaborated with Nick Guy, honed in a spacey and enchanting sound by layering gorgeous guitars overtop one another on releases such as Scenes From the South Island and Temple IV.
On an international scale, there was a growing number of acts bringing together textural guitarwork with the rhythmic structures of electronic music. A.R. Kane got the ball rolling with their contribution as one half of M/A/R/S/S on the incredibly popular and influential “Pump Up the Volume / Anitina (The First Time I See She Dance)” release in 1987, before incorporating dance music prominently into their genre-spanning second record in 1988. The simultaneous rise of both shoegaze and the alternative dance/baggy genres in the UK would see acts like My Bloody Valentine, Chapterhouse, The Veldt, Curve, Medicine, and Soda Stereo work both sounds into their music. On the more experimental end of the the shoegaze spectrum, Bowery Electric utilized slow steady drum loop samples for trip hop structure around stretched out droning guitar chords, The Third Eye Foundation’s blasts of noise established a greater danger alongside blistering drum n bass-style breakbeats on their Semtex record, and Seefeel’s unique brand of dubby guitar-laden ambient techno bliss were incredible studies in the power of repetition on their early releases.
Barnard’s Star’s emergence in the late 1990s feels like the culmination of developments of shoegaze and post-rock in New Zealand and the electronic stylings of the aforementioned bands operating within those genres in the Americas and the UK. This is evident on their one release readily accessible on the internet: the self-titled EP released in 1999 on their own imprint Beat Atlas Records. The release doesn’t feel like an EP in the traditional sense. It contains five songs, but stretches out to an LP-like 45 minutes, while flowing seamlessly from one track to the next to form a continuous cohesive suite.
The EP opens up with a stretched-out cry of what may or may not be a guitar, and slowly and steadily the first track “Solarride” comes into focus. Layers build up over a vast alien soundscape before becoming swathed by a rolling blanket of guitars. Hushed and hazy vocals slip in and out without any intelligibility while a steady rhythm rolls things along with only the occasional variation in groove via differentiation in hi hat/snare pattern. The percussion drops out in a bridge where the chord progression changes and heightens the tension built by the previous one. Then the original progression comes back sounds bigger than ever as the lead melody takes on a crunchier tone. These tiny variations in a largely unchanging structure make the song incredibly transcendent and firmly establish the band’s modus operandi on the record.
Plinky raindrop-like tones form the ambient interlude that moves into the next track. A minimal drum beat comes forward and is joined by some of the illest shoegaze™ guitar tone ever put to tape. The dense wall of reverby fuzz is penetrated by intermittent bird-like squawks that ring off into oblivion, while soft cooing vocals that will remind some listeners of the singing of Seefeel’s Sarah Peacock sift coyly through the haze.
“Jupiter Spirals” opens with a clangy riff that remains the melodic core throughout its entirety, becoming thicker and fuzzier and then being echoed by an obscured vocal line repeating behind it. Even without a snare, the beat remains powerfully propulsive with its punchy kicks, crisp reverse high hats and rattling tambourine.
The atmosphere of the release slowly evolves from its suspenseful start into blissful territory by the time “Arc Infinity” revs up. A gorgeous drone precedes an undeniably head-bobbing hi hat groove before the crunchy blur of guitar roars out. A heavenly vocal harmony dances between the ripples of distortion. The drums drop out, the feeling of impending release grows, and then we are hit with the most beautiful floating melody that lifts the track further heavenward. The only word I feel I can make out in the vocals is “fantasy,” which if it isn’t actually there I would like to imagine it is with such a euphoric composition swirling around my head.
The finale “Arc Infinite” presents a huge and immense wall of guitar containing only the slightest of variations in its core wafting back and forth through the stereo field with what sounds like a slower pitched down melody from the previous track. It burns like the slow fire of the sun coming up over a body of water, and by the time the last hums of amp feedback wind down it feels like we have witnessed a monumental triumph by the group.
I think the fact that this release isn’t stuffed with a million different ideas works to its benefit. The band exercises great patience in establishing such vivid soundscapes and rhythms that don’t tire with repetition and instead work their grooves deeper and deeper with every bar. The loop based composition of these tracks feels like they could have been constructed from improvised jam sessions, but every little element added in over the core of each track feels so intentional. Each tiny change in the drum programming or introduction of a new melody fits in so perfectly, and the appeal only grows every time that I listen to this release. I suppose it is in some ways a near perfect sounding record for me, because it perfectly combines so many musical characteristics that I have a strong affinity for: evocative and huge ambient soundscapes, hypnotic drum loops, thick crunchy effect-laden guitar textures, and a wall of sound penetrated by melodies with an ethereal lightness.
Plans to create an album never came to fruition, and by 2002 Barnard’s Star had disbanded. Guy would join forces with the aforementioned Roy Montgomery as Torlesse Super Group, and Greenfield would become a member of Teen Haters and The L.E.D.S while performing solo as Mela. Thorn would join Swinging Tasty Bag and Winstanley would remain active doing production and playing with Minisnap, The Dialtones, Cowboy Machine, and The Undercurrents.
As for the possibility of any future developments with Barnard’s Star, renewed interest in the group has arisen in large part by the album moving up the shoegaze and space rock revival charts on RateYourMusic, which is how it first came to my attention. It seems to be following a similar trajectory to that of In Stereo by Nemo, which was released the same year and shares the same genre characterisation as Barnard’s Star but while also carrying an alt–metal tinged heft. In Stereo seems to be on its way to becoming a cult favourite 23 years after its release, with rumours swirling of an impending reissue. It is with this article that I make my contribution to what I hope is a growing folklore surrounding Barnard’s Star. Could newfound fan-generated hype bring this band to shine brighter than ever before? I certainly hope so, as it would be a shame for this hidden spacey shoegazey dancy post-rock gem to fade away into the black hole of the internet’s recesses.
For more Barnard’s Star:
Biography of the band and interview with Helen Greenfield conducted by New Zealand music connoisseurs The Big City
Blog posts and gig photos by a graphic designer and friend of the band who designed the covers of their releases.