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ALTERNATIVE PRESS
GRAEME JEFFERIES
Messages For the Cakekitchen
On Messages for the Cakekitchen, released by Ajax Records, the solo artistry
of New Zealand's Graeme Jefferies is documented during the period after the
demise of This Kind of Punishment - a heralded New Zealand band that included
Graeme's older brother Peter. These messages, recorded on four-track between
1986-87 and released on Flying Nun in 1988, are the link between TKP and
Graeme Jefferies' current band the Cakekitchen.
Full of acoustic and electric guitars, cymbals crashing and drum kits, violas
and Jefferies' low-end larynx rumble, Messages is close to a blueprint for the two
Cakekitchen releases which followed, but even more eccentric. It's a vibrantly
chaotic vision of Bowie meets Bauhaus without the roll. It's Graeme's artistic
struggle captured at a pivotal moment in a recording career that began back in
1981 (i.e., "The Simple Tapestry of Fate," the self questioning of "The Cardhouse"
and "Is the Timing Wrong?") Sorely overlooked? As usual …
"The Simple Tapestry of Fate"is stunning. The chorus-less song phrasing is
fragmented and sprawled on top of a naked acoustic guitar: "Wake up, stumble,
fall, draw the blinds... We step into the coffee houses, all run dry..." The thick
acoustic plays arpeggios to the sound of rain falling in the background while a
piano slithers into the mix. Messages also features minimal electric guitar work
on the spacey "All the Colours Run Dry," and vocals by his then-girlfriend
Maxine Fleming on the folky "Prisoner of a Single Passion"(folky as folk can
be with metallic clunking noises, viola, sporadic bursts of electric et al. tossed
in), and mood galore from the schizophrenic electric guitar and tambourine
shaking in "If the Moon Dies."
A very rewarding glimpse at an overlooked genius - a songwriter with the
ability to seduce you into acidic Nick Drake day dreams.
(Ajax, POB 805293, Chicago IL60680)
- Michael Peters
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