Take heed, fans of obscure New Zealand singer-songwriter pop gems! You too, people who just straight up like being bummed out! Lasso your cat and your rainfall and your finest tea/malt liquor and find a window to cozy up to/wistfully stare out of! Because the fine folks over at De Stijl are reissuing The Last Great Challenge in a Dull World, the fantastic, and fantastically overlooked, 1990 solo debut by Peter Jefferies of seminal New Zealand post-punk band Nocturnal Projections. The album, which has been out of print since the mid-90s, comes back to life on June 4.
Initially released as a cassette by the New Zealand label Xpressway and later picked up and given CD/LP release by Chicago’s Ajax label, the album has since gone to that great SoundCloud in the sky (whatever that means). Yet music fans have not forgotten; Cat Power has covered Jefferies (see below), as has Amanda Palmer (see somewhere else). And with the De Stijl reissue, fans get two bonus songs from a Jefferies 7-inch, “The Fate of the Human Carbine” and “Catapult.”
Peter Jefferies left professional music in 2002 after a slew of releases with Nocturnal Projections and five solo albums. He now teaches drums, music composition, and recording technology at a high school in New Plymouth, New Zealand. So, if in addition to liking sad music and antipodean singer-songwriters, you’re also one of those weirdos who pretends to be a teenager in order to live that timeless dream of going to high school to hang out with teen girls and cool teachers long after you’re free of its hellish halls, well, there’s that info for you.
• De Stijl: http://www.destijlrecs.com
More about: Peter Jefferies
