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.

Happiness Is Luxury--Tunes For A Recession Mix Tape--Making Losers Happy--Xpressway Singles 1988-1991

There was a time when I was completely obsessed with New Zealand Rock. I was buying music from Flying Nun records directly. I probably would have bought a lot more, but back then it was difficult to buy things overseas. I had no idea how to get New Zealnd dollars to buy things. This was before Paypal, and before this outfits were accepting credit cards. I used to go to Pier Platters in Hoboken and go upstairs and pick through the Kiwi vinyl, of which they had an extraordinary selection. Today I wish I had bought music more blindly--I stuck to things I had heard of, mostly.

Somewhere I found out about the Xpressway label run by Dead C stalwart Bruce Russell. In a way it was an island of misfit toys for New Zealand artists who were no longer part of the Flying Nun group. After a beginning of being a diverse potpourri of worthy artists, the label was concentrating on more melodic artists. I had picked up the Peter Gutteridge tape Pure probably through a Flying Nun catalog I had and sent a later out in snail mail fashion as was popular in those days. Probably three weeks or so later I received a letter from Mr. Russell, beginning with the depressing words.

Dear Fred, Sadly, Xpressway is no more.....He went on to explain that he had founded a new label Corpus Hermeticum that would be devoted to more improvisational forms of music, in effect, going in an even less popcentric direction than Xpressway. I was disappointed as I had hoped to get some more things from their small catalog. I picked up some interesting items from CH over the years, which were fairly interesting but maybe not the sort of thing I found myself listening to repeatedly. Fortunately at least some of my Xpressway fix was sated through compilations, one of which is Making Losers Happy.

While the classic recording is the awesome Xpressway Pileup, there is much to enjoy on Making Losers Happy, which contains 14 tracks from rare singles and Eps recorded between 1988 and 1991. These recordings came out originally in batches of only 500, so this Cd is really indispensable to any fan of New Zealand music. This comp was released in the US on the musically adventurous and eclectic Drag City label out of Chicago. A great grouping of innovative artists are represented here, who create challenging music that never fails to be interesting.

The album begins strongly with a fairly tuneful (for them) Bad Politics by the Dead C, one of the great noisy experimental bands of New Zealand. A fairly grim pop tune with a nice driving beat to it. Russell, Michael Morley and Robbie Yeats have two others here also, one of which, Angel, is a favorite of mine. "Turn off the sun, and dance, forever..." A slow insular stoned out beginning descends into white noise and hypnotic drum patterns. A song of pure noisy beauty. Crazy I Know has an almost jangly pastoral quality to it. Saw Dead C at Maxwell's in Hoboken years ago, with Thurston Moore and drummer Tom Surgal doing an opening improvisatory set. They are a really interesting live band, masters of controlled feedback on stage. I recall one of the guitarists raising a huge squall by playing the guitar flat on a table similar to a pedal steel.



Alastair Galbraith is also represented, an artist that more people should know about. He collaborates with Graeme Jefferies (Cake Kitchen, This Kind of Punishment, Nocturnal Projections) on modern sea chanty Bravely Bravely and the grand, shimmering Timebomb. He also is here as a member of Plagal Grind (as was Peter Jefferies, Robbie Muir and David Mitchell), performing the album closer, the smoldering instrumental Blackout and also the elegaic Receivership.

David Mitchell of the 3d's is also here, with the jittery South Island raga Dead Dog in Port Chalmers. Dogs is a mesmeric noisy almost disco pop tune. He performs also Grey Funnel Line supporting the lead vocals by 3d bandmate Denise Roughan. The Terminals are represented by the Kiwi classic The Deadly Tango. The b side is the equally awesome and aggressively punky Do The Void.



Finally, one of my favorite artists, Peter Jefferies is here performing with Robbie Muir. What an amazing and incestuous bunch of musicians you find from this small scene. Jefferies Last Great Challenge in a Dull World is a special album for me, with great piano. On Making Losers Happy he performs the noisy invigorating Catapult. On a different tack, The Fate Of The Human Carbine is a dour sarcastic ballad with clever lyrics, quite in line with his work with This Kind of Punishment.



Making Losers Happy is a nice introduction to some of the standout artists on the Xpressway label. Once you hear this or Xpressway Pileup you will probably want to further explore the discographies of these musicians.