Keep the Bastards guessing....Peter Jefferies--Last Great Challenge in a Dull World

An abandoned flipper in a world of snow......

I still remember the letter I received in the mail from Bruce Russell of the Dead C... He said, "Alas, but Xpressway is no more"--it's just like me to get in on the tail end of something. I am of course referring to the New Zealand music label Xpressway, which had been run by Russell. He referred me to his new label Corpus Hermeticum (great name), which released for the most part more improvisational music. Flying Nun used to sell Xpressway cassettes in their mail order catalog--I think I may have a Peter Gutteridge cassette laying around someplace.....

So I am eternally thankful to Chicago's now defunct Ajax records for introducing me to another one of my many favorite albums, Peter Jefferies' The Last Great Challenge in a Dull World. Originally released on Xpressway in 1991, this has been a staple on the stereo ever since I heard it for the first time. One of the most subtly brutal records in my possession, a brilliant combination of experimental music and melodicism. As good a use of piano on a rock album that I know of. Like John Cale leading Joy Division maybe. Or maybe Ian Curtis fronting the Velvet Underground. Flip a coin. Actually this album is pretty singular, that has a coherence to it like an unintentional concept album.

High in Vitamin Zee

And as big a kiwi head as I am today, I don't know if I would have ever got my mitts on this without the intercession of Ajax, who licensed this bad boy from Xpressway. Additionally, Ajax released two super Cds by Jefferies' old band This Kind of Punishment, which included his brother Graeme, who later formed the Cakekitchen, another band worth investing in. The Jefferies brothers were also in Nocturnal Projections, a punkier band from the earlier 80's. With Shane Carter, Peter Jefferies created the song "Randolph's Coming Home", one of the greatest, most moving Kiwi Songs ever, a tribute to Wayne Elsey who died in a tragic train accident. And there is At Swim Two Birds, Jefferies' instrumental project with Jono Lonie, which I will also say a few things about one of these days.

 Sadly Ajax is no more, because it was a label of superb taste. Almost as bad for me, it was a retail store which sold lots of cool music at a reasonable price. It was my go-to mail order store for a number of years, and one that I never found an adequate replacement for.

First and foremost Jefferies has one of those recognizable voices, deep, dour, with an almost Mark E Smith tempered Shakespearean gravitas. He commands your attention, like a Mark Lanegan or Tom Waits would. But you pick up his accent and style, this is very much an album of New Zealand. Just a brilliantly odd album, with songs like Domesticia, which is like a modern folk song or maybe even a psalm, chanted over the sounds of making breakfast perhaps, and as a bonus probably one of the best uses of urination in a song.

But as much as anything else, there are the big songs here, like the follow up song, On an Unknown Beach, which simply a remarkable work of art. Absolutely moving, it's like he's painting an entire world with his sonic palette. As someone who plays the piano, I can fully appreciate what he's done on this record. Like the title of the album each song is a challenge in its own right. Furthermore, included on the Cd is the A and B sides of his single "The Fate of the Human Carbine". The aforementioned is song is brilliantly terse quietude, half madrigal, half murder ballad. Later covered by Cat Power. The B side to the single is Catapult, a joyously noisy number that could have found a place on a Dead C album.



Last Great Challenge....is simply one of those unique albums that sounds just as great as when I originally bought it. I mean, OK Computer took Radiohead 6 months in a studio and cost eleventy bazzillion pounds to make. And I think its a fantastic album that makes me so sad I can't listen to it so much. For me, its touches some a little too close to home abouth the end of the millenium times. But I know that Peter Jefferies probably spent a few hundred kiwibucks to make this and its not too far behind that album in quality, the difference being a handful of people listening to the latter, while the former becoming the biggest art-rock group in the world. No less creativity here either. It almost reminds me of the amazing advancements in studio technology made by people like Lee "Scratch" Perry in Jamaica. Sometimes people just find ways to do things outside the box.

For all the sinister balladry going on on the album like Neither Do I, there are also songs like Guided Tour of a Well Know Street, the aforementioned Catapult, and Cold View, which rock out like nobody's business. I'd be remiss not to mention the opening song Chain or Reaction, which is another highlight, an itchy, piano driven gem, building greater tension with each verse. Intelligent social commentary in the lyrics, with "everybody playing every body else's song."

This album is another one of the good ones. Maybe not for every person, but for me the music resonates deeply. I feel like a person who is on a secret when I listen to this. As far as I can tell, Peter Jefferies has not released a record since 2001, teaching music in New Zealand these days. Well, you never know what can happen in the music biz. If Bill Fay and The Distractions can put out new albums after all these years, maybe we'll hear something new from Peter Jefferies soon. Let's hope so.