After Glenda and Ross left, too scared to go onto the mysterious beyond with sonic adventurers Hamish and Alister, former Gordons bassist John Halvorsen was recruited for the group. This line-up recorded the album Tanker and 12" single Grader Spader at Wellington's famous Writhe studio with Brent McLachlan at the controls, and also toured America, playing at the New Music Seminar in 1989.

When Hamish stayed in America with his new wife, Alister and John returned to NZ to recruit Brent McLachlan as the new Bailter Space drummer - the same Brent who engineered Tanker and with whom the two had formed The Gordons in 1980. Reunited on their single-minded musical trek, the three recorded the album Thermos at Writhe in 1990. They followed that release with a 1991 Northern Hemisphere tour. 1992 saw the broup based in NZ, where the EP The Aim was released to great acclaim and they completed a new album, Robot World, in Wellington.

Bailter Space packed their bags again, heading for New York and on to Europe to base themselves in Germany. They returned to live in New York in 1993, where Matador Records released Robot World and the group began recording their fourth album for release by Matador and Flying Nun. Sandwiched between these two albums comes the EP. B.E.I.P which contains two tracks from each album in radically different versions and mixes. They began touring the world again from March 1994.

Reconciling the sides of Bailter Space's music expressed on the two previous albums - the smooth journey of "Thermos" and the futuristic science fright of "Robot World" - the group had arrived at releasing Vortura where sound and song merged into powerful guitar detonations, shadowy voices, and spooky ambient sci-fi.

1995 saw the release of the album Wammo and the the single Retro. On the surface of planet bailterpop, Retro is the tale of stranded space travellers - the title referring to retro-rockets rather than retro-fashions - laced with the group's sweetest hum of electricity yet. 'Retro' is followed by two samples of the awe-inspiring Bailter Space live experience that has repeatedly left NZ audiences awe struck, these two songs recorded on Bailter Space's US tour in July 1995