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ALTERNATIVE PRESS






THE CAKEKITCHEN
Time Flowing Backwards



The songs on Time Flowing Backwards are like slivers of
uncooked spagetti - raw, brittle and frail - and you fear that
they might snap and fall between the orange glow of the
metal coils on an electric stove. This album is as near genius
as it can get. Itīs simply terrifying how quickly the water
came to the boil.
A fabled music hero of New Zealand and the main dude
of the Cakekitchen, Graeme Jeffereis has been on the scene
since 1982. Though I never heard them, Jefferies has apparently
released a solo album and performed in two groups before
releasing a Cakekitchen EP (vinyl only) on the Flying Nun label
in 1989. My ears were indeed of a virgin state. Upon first listen
to Time Flowing Backwards, Jefferies sounded like a mutant
Steve Kilbey (of Church renown) on a lethal dose of barbiturates
(he still does on “Machines”), but by the third listen I was
captured by the hypnotic delivery of the vocals as I read
the lyrics.
Though the songs throughout the album display a diversity
of styles, one of the best cuts “Silence of the Sirens,” has much
the same hurdy-gurdy flavor as the softer moments on the Velvetīs
banana album. The dissonance is subtle with an organ or violin
wrapping the gentle guitar hooks in a hazy mist as bassist Rachael
King adds harmony. While the song description may make the
groups sound seem merely pretty, itīs only because their are no
easy labels for the Cakekitchen, and thatīs probably the highest
criticism a band can receive.
With Time Flowing Backwards, The Cakekitchen are really on
to something. Their songs document the complete mastery of mood
through understatement in a way that Nick Drake, Spaceman 3,
and early R.E.M. once achieved. I could drop a few more names,
but words seem inadequate in describing what The Cakekitchen
have accomplished.
(Homestead, P.O.Box 800, Rockville Centre, NY 115710800)

- Pal Norman

 
 
 
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