The Cakekitchen, Kangaroos in My Top Paddock (side A)

Graeme Jefferies worked with his brother Peter in the mid-80s to create four remarkable records in the mid-'80s.  They wobble clumsily into and out of traditional song form, with deadpan vocals and primitive recordings emphasizing the group's rough-hewn tendencies.  After Jefferies titled his 1987 solo album Messages from the Cakekitchen, he adopted the shortened Cakekitchen moniker.  These albums gradually emphasized more his melodic tendencies, with an increasingly driving rhythm section.  At some point, though, the Cakekitchen lost much of this drive and volume, and 2009's Kangaroos in My Top Paddock in some ways reverts to the personal qualities of Messages from the Cakekitchen.  Some songs are particularly austere, with focus on Jefferies's blunt vocals — even here, though, his songwriting has matured, and it's noticeable.  Other songs seem to almost call for a more ambitious production, even as it's missing, and these songs often have an odd bossa nova-like beat that reminds me a bit of Mañanas-era Kevin Ayers.  Even with this variety, I find Jefferies's songwriting much more at home in these intimate arrangements and recordings than when he tried to surround it with a full rock band, and this chapter in his work feels to me like a return to form.  The quirky cover photograph and album title feel a bit like a warped take on a rock album, which seems appropriate here.