DISCOGRAPHY
This Kind of Punishment
1983 - LP - Flying Nun - New Zealand
cover
cover
cover
back
insert
A Beard Of Bees
1983 - LP - Xpressway - New Zealand
1993 - LP/CD - Ajax - Chicago
cover
live '85
Cassette - Xpressway - New Zealand
cover
5 by Four
1984 - 7" - Flying Nun - New Zealand
cover
back
In the Same Room
1987 - LP
LP/CD - Ajax - Chicago
cover
back
insert 1
insert 2
Killing Capitalism With Kindness
1991 - 3xLP Box Set - Turbulence Records - Belgium
cover
Cooler Than You: This Kind of Punishment
Sadly, some of my favorite bands are forgotten by today's music listeners. While the Joy Divisions and Fausts of the world are commemorated by box sets and a continued interest in their influence, lesser-known bands (who were more subtly influential) are forgotten, delegated to the obscurist enthusiasm of cult record collectors and music geeks. New Zealand's This Kind of Punishment probably falls into the latter category--while their three mid-80's albums have been reissued on CD, they are rarely talked about anymore and many people have still never heard of them.
This Kind of Punishment formed from the remains of Nocturnal Projections, a post-punk band that was heavily rooted in the gothic sounds of Joy Division. Led by brothers Peter and Graeme Jefferies, whose chilling voices were the perfect icing on the cake, Nocturnal Projections released a few cassettes before breaking up in 1983. Soon after, the Jefferies brothers recorded the first This Kind of Punishment album at home on 4-track, abandoning punk rock for a stripped-down, quiet approach.
The self-titled first album shows the formation of the This Kind of Punishment sound--retaining the moodiness of Nocturnal Projections, but with mostly keyboards, piano, and guitar. The driving "After the Fact" opens the album, building to a climax with pounding drums and ringing electric guitar. It's one of the most accessible This Kind of Punishment songs, with the refrain "Doesn't it always?" sung over descending piano figures and creating a dark, beautiful wall of sound. The somewhat experimental "Don't Take Those" contains some twisted vocals that may be a bit of an acquired taste, but the song is a good illustration of the dark, brooding intimacy of This Kind of Punishment.
"If An Axe is an Arm" is a beautiful acoustic song (with both brothers singing together) that shows This Kind of Punishment at their most perfect. Third member Chris Matthews takes vocals on the morose "Just Another Funeral" and "Some More Than Others" is a jarring critique of imperialism. "Two Minutes Drowning" sounds like it could have influenced the slowcore movement, except that virtually no one ever heard this album. Flying Nun's original 1983 pressing of 1000 copies quickly sold out and except for a brief cassette reissue on Xpressway, this record was unavailable until Roof Bolt's 1998 CD reissue.
A Beard of Bees, This Kind of Punishment's second album, was recorded in 1984. Still using the 4-track, the brothers Jefferies reach a more mature level in their songwriting. More instruments were used, especially in the six-man group improvisation "East Meets West".
Graeme's songwriting really reached a new level with "From the Diary of Hermann Doubt," a complex and introspective song that is closer to James Joyce than anything in pop music. Chris Matthews returns with two songs, "The Horrible Hour" and the haunting "The Sleepwalker." His voice is not unlike Peter and Graeme's, spooky and perfect for the minor keys and cold piano accompaniments of the music. The lengthy "An Open Denial" is the final song, played by the brothers alone, which slowly unfolds as Peter croons some of the most obtuse lyrics ever. The song is arranged so delicately and pastorally you'd hardly realize what he's singing, as Graeme adds a trembling violin to Peter's piano arpeggios.
The third and final This Kind of Punishment album, 1987's In the Same Room, busts out with "Immigration Song," the loudest and most aggressive This Kind of Punishment song ever. Feeling somewhat inconsistent, the album shifts moods with each song, from the contemplative "Left Turns Right" to the angry guitar-driven thrashfest "Don't Go". Michael Morley of the Dead C writes and sings the anthemic "Holding," the most straightforward item I've ever heard from him. "Overground in China" and "The Men by the Pool" are more subdued, with the now-trademarked This Kind of Punishment guitar sound. It all comes together for "Words Fail Me," the final track, which comes almost full-circle back to the sound of Nocturnal Projections.
The CD issue of In the Same Room tacks on the 5 by 4 EP, originally recorded in 1985 between the last two albums. This five-song EP shows This Kind of Punishment at their more experimental, with "Mr. Tic-Toc," a expressionistic spoken poem the highlight. While enjoyable, it's not as essential as the albums.
After the band dissolved in 1987, Graeme went on the form the Cakekitchen, who have released several albums. Peter embarked on a solo career, debuting with the stunning The Last Great Challenge in a Dull World, featuring "The Fate of the Human Carbine," possibly his best song ever. Both Jefferies brothers remain active in the New Zealand music scene, and neither has abandoned their gloomy roots.
Those who are fans of the New Zealand sound should enjoy This Kind Of Punishment. A lot of NZ artists (Alastair Galbraith, Roy Montgomery, etc.) share a similar atmosphere to their music that This Kind of Punishment piloted in the 1980's. For some reason I keep coming back to these records--perhaps it's the dark, yet abstract quality to their songwriting--and they never fail me.
Note: There is also a live cassette that was released by Xpressway. Please contact me if you have any information on this tape.
john fail
This Kind Of Punishment
This Kind Of Punishment
Roof Bolt, Released 1998
First things first; I'm writing about my own label's release, so if that bugs you, skip reading the review and just buy the disc! That said, this is an album that has longed deserved an audience beyond the crowd of record collectors and aging antipodean hipsters who scored original vinyl copies. If you've seen either Jefferies brother perform live, you've likely heard one or two of its songs and are already acquainted with their stern power. This disc captures an epiphany that had far-reaching consequences.
The Jefferies had previously played Banshees-influenced punk rock, but here they stripped away the roar and displayed the stark, sturdy skeletons of their songs. Instead of recording in a studio, they applied the home recording aesthetic then being championed by the Clean and Tall Dwarfs to unabashedly artistic ends. Each track features just one or two instruments, and either Peter's distinctive baritone or Graeme's slightly less cavernous voice. The latter's more stylized vocal turns recall the work of This Heat's Charles Hayward, while the former's efforts bring to mind John Cale unburdened by schmaltz and schtick. Future disco doppelganger Chris Matthews takes the lead on the heart-rending "Just Another Funeral." Throughout the group maintains an atmosphere of existential dread leavened with bleak humor.
-- Bill Meyer
at a glance...
Hometown: Auckland, New Zealand
Year Formed: 1983
Members:
Graeme Jefferies - guitar, violin, vocals
Peter Jefferies - piano, drums, vocals
Chris Matthews - guitar, drums, vocals
Bands In The Family:
The Cakekitchen, Nocturnal Projections, Graeme Jefferies, Peter Jefferies, Two Foot Flame, The Headless Chickens
Notes:
This Kind Of Punishment formed out of the ashes of the Jefferies' Brit-punk combo Nocturnal Projections. After becoming burned out on touring and disappointed by their unsuccessful efforts to capture the Nocturnals' live sound in professional studios, in 1983 the brothers recorded this album at home on a 4 track tape recorder which they borrowed from Chris Knox (Tall Dwarfs). Upon hearing the tapes, Knox pursuaded Flying Nun records to issue the album. After the initial pressing of 1000 sold out the record faded into obscurity. In 1992, five years after TKP broke up, Ajax records began reissuing the group's catalog on CD. This disc completes that reissue program.
www.inkblotmagazine.com
This Kind of Punishment
A classic case of obscurity at the time but hosannas in the future, New Zealand's This Kind of Punishment started as an experiment by brothers Graeme and Peter Jefferies after their earlier group Nocturnal Projections fell apart. Their goal was to move away from the punkish, more straightforward sound from the early eighties into a self-consciously more experimental and artistic vein, at which they admirably succeeded over the course of three albums and one EP, each of which had a very structured and dark, if not downright dour, feel to them. The shades of bands like the Velvet Underground hung heavy over the group, not least because of the prominence of piano and violin in their songs as much as, if not more than, more expected instruments as guitar and drums. TKP's records were known for taking large amounts of time to assemble and the Jefferies' near-obsessive care for their sound ‹ the second, A Beard of Bees, was recorded over eighteen months, then released as a private pressing rather than through their label Flying Nun because the band preferred the vinyl releases from another record-making plant. Their albums generally confused or outright angered the Jefferies' fan base, but the records achieved a cult following over the years, eventually resulting in their rerelease by various labels in the 1990s, most notably by the US's Ajax Records, coinciding with the increasing prominence of Peter Jefferies' solo career and Graeme Jefferies' work leading the Cakekitchen.
This Kind of Punishment
This Kind of Punishment
1983 - LP/CD - Flying Nun
This Kind of Punishment's first record dates from the days when New Zealand rock was abrasive rather than jangly -- Peter and Graeme Jeffries (major figures in the scene through the next two decades) assemble a collection of harsh, minimal guitars, low-fi organ drones, and chilling vocals, mainly eschewing drums or opting for booming, primitive percussion. The band's aggressively unsettling style is highly pronounced on these early recordings, which feature none of the slightly more palatable excursions of future releases.
Nitsuh Abebe
This Kind Of Punishment
Con This Kind Of Punishment (Xpressway) i TKOP stabilirono un nuovo standard di new wave sperimentale, in cui tanto le ballate folkrock quanto i pezzi d'avanguardia erano composti ed eseguiti con intensita` e coscienziosita` da musica classica (per quanto registrati, come tradizione locale, in maniera amatoriale). Beard Of Bees (TKP, 1984) (Xpressway, 1990) fece anche meglio: le tipiche canzoni oblique di Peter (Open Denial) coesistono con le prime composizioni kafkiane di Graeme (From The Diary Of Herman Doubt) e i primi pastiche dadaisti (East Meet West).
Peter Jefferies, benche' piu` anziano, era in realta` asservito al genio del fratello Graeme, che verso la fine si cimentava anche alle tastiere e agli strumenti ad arco (la viola in particolare).
Si sciolsero dopo la pubblicazione dell'EP 5 By Four (Flying Nun, 1985), il loro lavoro piu` audace, con puzzle postmoderni come North Head.
Postumo usci` il terzo album, In The Same Room (Flying Nun, 1987) (Ajax, 1993), con canzoni molto piu` regolari come Don't Go e Left Turns Right e una nevrotica Words Fail Me.
Il bassista Johnny Pierce e il chitarrista Chris Matthews avevano gia` formato gli Headless Chicken.
Piero Scaruffi
THIS KIND OF PUNISHMENT
This Kind Of Punishment (Roofbold)
Eine Kritik, die in viele Richtungen gehen könnte. Sich etwa auf den stilistischen Quantensprung beziehen könnte, den die Brüder Graeme und Peter Jefferies nach dem Ende von Nocturnal Projections 1983 mit dieser ersten TKP-LP absolvierten. Oder auf die erste wichtige Wegegabelung zweier einflußreicher Karrieren, als die diese Platte gesehen werden kann. Auf die kleine Odyssee, die das letzte verbleibende Glied in der von Ajax begonnenen TKP-Reissue-Kette, bis zur letztlichen Wiederauferstehung auf dem NZ-only Lable Roofbold hinter sich hat. Da wir euch in den letzten Jahren jedoch lange genug mit der Bedeutung von This Kind Of Punishment in den Ohren gelegen haben, da nur wenig Leser vor 15 Jahren bei Erscheinen des Originals dieser Platte zugeschlagen haben werden, da sich hier einige jener Stücke ("Ahead Of Their Time" oder "Just Another Funeral") finden, die einen bei Peters Solo-Klavier-Auftritten in einem arktischen Mentholsturm hüllten und da man seit dem letzten Nico-Abend selten so inbrünstig Zeilen wie "Looking up to heaven from my hell. It only takes two minutes, two minutes from my hell" ('Two Minutes Drowning') mitsingen konnte, aus diesen und vielen weiteren Gründen, sei diese CD allen Lesern dieser Zeitung auf den Einkaufszettel geschrieben.
Gregor Kessler
THIS KIND OF PUNISHMENT: A BEARD OF BEES
With the steadily growing number of new domestic releases from New Zealand's Xpressway Records, the time has came to dig into that label's rich archives and unearth the music of its current artists' predecessors. This Kind Of Punishment revolved around brothers Peter and Graeme Jefferies, the former of Cyclops and Plagal Grind, and with a recent self-titled album to his credit; and the latter of the Cake-kitchen. Both have an uncanny knack for exposing intense emotion through dense, atypical music that bares a borderline relationship to rock `n roll. A Beard Of Bees, recorded in 1984, was TKP's second album and it explores many different moods, from dark to delicate. Peter's low, expressive vocals and nontraditional piano playing is joined by Graeme, jumping from electric guitar and bass to zither, electric umu and electric violin, and collaborator Chris Matthews, who provides vocals and instruments on about half the songs. A host of experimental noises, electronic and organic, are also sprinkled throughout the nine songs. Naturally enough, the band captured its many sounds on the four-track equipment the Brothers Jefferies are known for taming, bringing an unexpected fullness to each song's sparse core. Dip into "From The Diary Of Hermann Doubt," "Trepidation" and the closing opus "An Open Denial," and expect the rest of This Kind Of Punishment's history to be reissued by Ajax in the future.
Lydia Anderson
THIS KIND OF PUNISHMENT - A Beard Of Bees (Ajax)
I no longer think of TKIP as purely a transitional gig for the Jefferies brothers, whose tendencies toward creepy sparsity (Peter) and placid near-silence (Graham, of the Cakekitchen) coexist here with the noise I thought was the whole point of this band. And though I don't *think* there's any special about Beard Of Bees, for some reason I only just now made the connection between the Jefferies family sound and 154-era Wire.
jj@pastemob.org
This Kind of Punishment
A Beard Of Bees 1984 - LP/CD - Ajax
Spare yet astonishingly powerful at the same time, TKP's second full release remains an unjustly ignored highlight of post-punk rock, building tension in ways not far removed from the likes of Joy Division and the Comsat Angels, but too, building with their own distinct, restrained qualities, heightened by the instrumental variety throughout, from mandolin to electric viola. The recording's claustrophobic feel resulting from its four-track origins could earn the album a 'lo-fi' classification if it weren't for the fact that TKP relentlessly avoid the sloppy clichs that such a category might call to mind. Beard avoids conventional drum rhythms at many points, relying instead on odd percussion boxes and Peter Jefferies' careful, imposing piano to support the low end along with the bass. Beginning with the ominous instrumental "Prelude," with Peter handling keyboards and brother Graeme on plucked violin, the album wends a haunting way through fractured lyrical portraits of existential dilemmas, eschewing "grand statements" in favor of intimate portraits, like the ex-party goer in "The Horrible Hour," well-sung by adjunct member Chris Matthews. Though the Jefferies brothers perform just about everything on most tracks, with Peter taking the lion's share of the vocals, various others add contributions from time to time, including "smashing of beer crates" on "East Meets West," which starts calmly enough but has a frightening, though low-key midsection with sudden screams and other buried noises. Quite wisely, not everything is completely awash in gloom. "An Open Denial" for instance, while not a knee-slapper by any means, captures the ear with its flat-out beauty, Peter's deep yet wistful vocals matching well with his piano as Graeme adds shading from violin, guitar, and bass. It could almost be something from Bark Psychosis or even late Talk Talk years before its time -- one of many ways Beard stands clearly apart from the era of its creation.
Ned Raggett
This Kind of Punishment
5 by Four 1984 - 7" - Flying Nun
Punningly referencing the number of songs on this EP and the number of people in the band at the time, 5 mostly steers away from the dark beauty of Beard and into slightly different paths. Not sounding like a unified release despite its provenance of a single recording, 5 seems like a chance for the different members to try out varying song styles to see what happens. Opening track "Mr. Tic Toc" consists of a spoken word piece about a worker at a factory, while the musical backing suddenly shifts halfway through from soft piano and guitar to shrill mechanistic drones. Chris Matthews' contribution, "Flipper Go Home," frazzles out lyrically and musically, repetitive drumming underlying his strangled lyrics before ending with found-sound vocals and a muffled piano. Meanwhile, "North Head" is a strangely aggressive, instrumental art-piece that could almost be a weird after-echo of some of Einsturzende Neubaten's early stormers -- all clattering, massively echoed drums and scraped guitars. "What Can I Say?" and the more energetic "Out of My Hands" sound the most like Beard tracks, but with their own queasy spin on things nonetheless. On balance, this is a surprising but worthy release.
Ned Raggett
This Kind of Punishment
In the Same Room 1987 - LP/CD - Ajax
The final TKP release stripped the band down to its core members the Jefferies brothers, though they brought in a number of guests to help out, including such notables as Alastair Galbraith, Michael Morley and Shayne Carter. The resulting effort covers much stylistic ground while still clearly being the focused effort of the siblings and their at-times aurally dank but always compelling musical and lyrical vision. Peter again handles most of the vocals in his semi-chanting way, though Graeme has his tracks here and there (his vocal-and-guitar "The Men by the Pool" is a definite highlight, at once gentle and unusual); even Morley takes the lead on one number, the measured stomp "Holding," which he also wrote solo. "Overground in China" is one of the lightest things TKP tried, with gentle guitar strums and uplifting piano counterpoint providing most of the music, yet Peter's quietly gripping vocals mark this as no other band but TKP. "On Various Days" is actually a bit of a ringer, having been recorded during the Beard sessions, but fits in here well as the album's center track, with Graeme turning in some excellent guitar work to carry the song. Interestingly, Peter avoids piano on many tracks, preferring instead to play his other main instrument, drums, while Graeme plays guitars, creating an even more stripped-down and "close" sound than before -- slightly ironic given that the record was made in an actual studio and not on a portable four-track! Straightforward guitar thrash turns up more than once, as on "Immigration Song" and the quiet-into-loud "Don't Go," yet Peter's vocals remain the cryptic calm point in the storm throughout. In retrospect, Same remains a fine, striking conclusion to TKP's underneath-the-radar career.
Ned Raggett
This Kind of Punishment
A classic case of obscurity at the time but hosannas in the future, New Zealand's This Kind of Punishment started as an experiment by brothers Graeme and Peter Jefferies after their earlier group Nocturnal Projections fell apart. Their goal was to move away from the punkish, more straightforward sound from the early eighties into a self-consciously more experimental and artistic vein, at which they admirably succeeded over the course of three albums and one EP, each of which had a very structured and dark, if not downright dour, feel to them. The shades of bands like the Velvet Underground hung heavy over the group, not least because of the prominence of piano and violin in their songs as much as, if not more than, more expected instruments as guitar and drums. TKP's records were known for taking large amounts of time to assemble and the Jefferies' near-obsessive care for their sound -- the second, A Beard of Bees, was recorded over eighteen months, then released as a private pressing rather than through their label Flying Nun because the band preferred the vinyl releases from another record-making plant. Their albums generally confused or outright angered the Jefferies' fan base, but the records achieved a cult following over the years, eventually resulting in their rerelease by various labels in the 1990s, most notably by the US's Ajax Records, coinciding with the increasing prominence of Peter Jefferies' solo career and Graeme Jefferies' work leading the Cakekitchen.
Ned Raggett
77. PETER JEFFERIES - The Last Great Challenge In A Dull World
Ah, New Zealand. What about you down there makes you so damn good?
Admittedly, right now my NZ fetish is being largely fed by the fact that a brilliant director, Peter Jackson, is directing the film version of a brilliant book, The Lord of the Rings. But there are plenty of other reasons, of course, and music happens to figure in a lot of those.
Peter Jefferies -- noted cult singer. You've heard of their kind before, of course. Used to be part of the band This Kind of Punishment, helped invent lo-fi before lo-fi existed, even though he actually mostly records in regular studios, it's more the sense of aesthetic, if you will. While his brother Graeme is off doing stuff as the Cakekitchen, and mighty good stuff it is, Peter is no less prolific, talented, whatever you want to say. Armed with his piano and his defiant non-singing singing voice -- John Cale has been mentioned as a comparison point, and it makes definite sense, but Peter is even rougher at points -- and some of the best damn musicians from the two islands (Alastair Galbraith, Bruce Russell, David Mitchell, Robbie Muir, Michael Morley, a whole Flying Nun/Xpressway axis and then some, but the shadowy screwy side rather than the poppy), he came out with this album as his solo debut. And you all need to get it now, yes indeed.
Why? Oh, I could mention "On an Unknown Beach" -- in fact, I will. Piano plays rhythmically, beautifully but not sweetly, still just hollow enough, and listen to the gray oceanside imagery of the mind, Jefferies voice rising and falling, outsider art without ever calling attention to itself as such. It alone is why everyone needs to hear this, frankly, and were I feeling especially contrary, I could stop right here.
But that would be wrong. So rejoice! So much is interesting here, so many tunes sound like they are being assembled either on the spot or from unexpected sources. It's not really the sense of improvisation as it is the sense of random possibility. Vocals crumble from warped tapes, guitars sound like they come from the next room, pictures of domestic and 'everyday' life suggest themselves randomly and song titles like "The Fate of the Human Carbine" and "The House of Weariness" sound somewhere between Victorian moral uplift and a Chris Ware/Daniel Clowes landscape of drear. Nothing quite occurs as it is meant to, and you can never quite be sure what will happen next.
Shadowy, in the end. Not lifeless, not dead or darkŠbut something still is not quite right.
Ned Raggett
Columbia House DVD Club