The Last Great Challenge In A Dull World

Peter Jefferies's extraordinary debut solo album, The Last Great Challenge in a Dull World, first saw life as a cassette via the Xpressway label.

Though no one's gotten around to writing a book on it yet, The Last Great Challenge in a Dull World nonetheless stands as one of the singular singer-songwriter albums of all time, existing on a sparsely populated plane with Pink Moon, I Often Dream of Trains,Blues Run the Game, Our Mother the Mountain and not many others. In a sandy voice that soothes and slashes, Jefferies offers a compassionate, piercingly lucid view of the endeavor of life, all our pain and small glories rendered in tones both harrowing and tender. On piano, drums and percussion, he pounds out melodies that roar, sweep and lilt, accompanied on many songs by the serrated guitars of a variety of players.

Featuring a small team of South Island heavy-hitters - all three members of the Dead C as well as David Mitchell (3Ds), Alastair Galbraith, Kathy Bull (Look Blue Go Purple) and Robbie Muir - Last Great Challenge provides a pivot point in Jefferies's formidable recording career, which included two bands he shared with his brother Graeme in the '80s, Nocturnal Projections and This Kind of Punishment, and four further solo albums, as well as stints in bands such as MeccaNormal, Plagal Grind and collaborations with Shayne Carter.

This is an immediate and affecting album - sit a spell and see if it doesn't speak to you as well.