The Cakekitchen

Graeme Jefferies, whose skills encompass vocals, guitar, piano, and viola, occupies cult-icon status throughout New Zealand, where the activities of his band Cakekitchen further entrenched his standing within the local underground. Once This Kind of Punishment disbanded, Jefferies launched Cakekitchen toward the close of the 1980s. The group took its name from his own 1988 solo release, Messages for the Cakekitchen, and has functioned ever since as a fluid collective of supporting players under his sole direction. Retaining the brooding, Velvet Underground-inflected storytelling and ragged post-punk textures that marked his earlier work, the band issued its debut album, Time Flowing Backwards, in 1991, when the lineup comprised Jefferies alongside bassist Rachael King and drummer Robert Key. By the arrival of 1993’s Far From the Sun, both King and Key had departed, their places taken by bassist Keith McLean and drummer Huw Dainow. Two years later, on Stompin’ Thru the Boneyard, Cakekitchen operated as a duo, with Jefferies handling multiple instruments and Jean-Yves Douet supplying drums.