The Cakekitchen October 29, 2005

One last chance to catch the Cakekitchen live...

What: The Cakekitchen and Pumice
Where: The Wine Cellar, St Kevin?s Arcade, K Rd
When: Sunday Oct 30 from 5pm
How much: $10.00
On the web: www.thecakekitchen.net

After an 11 year absence from their native country, The Cakekitchen have just been home to premiere their new album, Put Your Foot Inside the Door. Anyone engaged in self-flagellation after missing last week?s captivating 2hr performance from group-founder Graeme Jefferies? will be pleased to hear that he has been persuaded to do one last Auckland show before flying back to Europe.

This Sunday, with support from one-man-band Pumice, The Cakekitchen give an intimate, early-evening performance at K Rd?s Wine Cellar: no presales, doors open from 5pm, gig begins at 6, be early to ensure entry to this rare New Zealand performance.

Formed out of the ashes of pioneering early 80s New Zealand music collective This Kind of Punishment, The Cakekitchen is led by head baker Graeme Jefferies. Since their 1988 inception, the group has made quite a name for itself, releasing 9 full length albums, a few EPs and some 7"s along the way.

Graeme has reinvented the band on several occasions, including a long list of respected musicians, basing it in different countries and releasing albums on respected labels such as Flying Nun, Rough Trade, Homestead, Ajax and Hausmusik. At one time or another the group has set up operations in either New Zealand, England, France, Holland or Germany, where his soundtrack contribution to the cult movie Sonnenallee became a top five chart hit.

The ninth Cakekitchen release, Put Your Foot Inside the Door, is a mainly solo affair with Jefferies playing most instruments, all held together by the uniquely resonant voice that fans have so much taken to heart since he first appeared alongside brother Peter in Nocturnal Projections many years ago.

Often a Cakekitchen release can be many years in the oven and this is certainly true of the latest offering, which is an ongoing labour of love that started taking shape as far back as 1998.

Featuring a wide selection of musical colours, cellos, violas, backwards and forwards guitars, drums, pianos and assorted unusual instrumentation like toy guns or Mongolian Throat Singing all seem to find a place in the mix. At some points during the album, unexpected musical changes seem to occur as if by magic, such as when busy strings and acoustic strumming rapidly give way to a morning chorus of picking and birdcalls with what sounds like somebody rowing a boat down stream, on the epic ?Voyage to the Sun?.

From the opening and very danceable Velvet Underground-esque guitar chug of ?Strung Out? to the closing cello-filled ode ?The Hop Hop Song?, the new Cakekitchen album is chocked full of interesting stories.

Allmusic.com: ?Typically filled with the kind of elating guitar pop that Guided By Voices and Yo La Tengo specialize in, Cakekitchen albums resemble little outside of their own idiom.?

www.thecakekitchen.net