Graeme Jefferies Announces Auckland Solo Show

A towering figure in Aotearoa underground music circles and beyond, Graeme Jefferies is co-founder of legendary Stratford post-punks Nocturnal Projections, Flying Nun / Xpressway lo-fi pioneers This Kind Of Punishment, his own inimitable ongoing The Cakekitchen, and author of acclaimed memoir Time Flowing Backwards — declared a "must-read" by Marc Masters for Pitchfork's Best Music Books 2019 roundup. Productively sparked by pandemic isolation to release two solo albums over the past year, Hog Porridge and Heffalumping (2022) and Canary in a Coalmine (2023), Jefferies has announced a rare Tāmaki Makaurau headline show in the resplendent surrounds of Auckland Unitarian Church on 23rd September. Brought to you by Strange News Touring, Jefferies will be joined for the occasion by Hermione Johnson "making use of the newly restored pipe organ at the church". We recommend securing your spot for this very special event and open your ears to both new records below...

Graeme Jefferies (The Cakekitchen, This Kind of Punishment, Nocturnal Projections)
with Hermione Johnson
Saturday 23rd September - Auckland Unitarian Church, 1A Ponsonby Road (8pm)
Tickets available HERE via UTR

Press release:

For over four decades now, Graeme Jefferies has been forging a road less travelled in New Zealand’s underground music scene. Whether as a founding member of short-lived but infinitely influential post-punk band Nocturnal Projections, the equally noteworthy outfit This Kind Of Punishment, or his long-standing musical vehicle The Cakekitchen, if there’s a dark and undiscovered corner to be explored, Graeme Jefferies has ventured there.

Recently, faced as we all were with the isolation that came with life in a pandemic era, Graeme opted yet again to delve into deeper places and write, record, record, and write. Now, the results are beginning to see the light of day in the form of two (so far) extraordinary new solo records.

Released in relatively quick succession, Hog Porridge and Heffalumping (November 2022) and Canary in a Coalmine (June 2023) were entirely written, played, and recorded by Graeme himself, and it was for this reason he chose to release them under his own name.

With songs ranging from melancholic nostalgia (I Wish We Could Turn Back the Clock Like It’s 1978) to what Elsewhere’s Graham Reid called “bleak humour and dark delight” on The Love of a Ginger Cat, to quiet cacophony using his current favourite musical toy, a century old fretless zither known as a marxophone, the songs here find Graeme Jefferies in his finest form yet.

Strange News Touring is thrilled to present a very rare and special solo show from Graeme Jefferies, in the hallowed and intimate hall of Auckland Unitarian Church. Support comes from Hermione Johnson, making use of the newly restored pipe organ at the church. This will be an appointment not to miss.