Time Flowing Backwards is the fascinating and revealing story of Graeme Jefferies — one of the most inventive and influential musicians to emerge from New Zealand's vibrant independent music scene in the 1980s.
This memoir spans over three decades of Jefferies' career spent with bands Nocturnal Projections, This Kind of Punishment and The Cakekitchen as well as a solo artist. In a candid and in—depth style, Jefferies recounts his recording and songwriting process along with riveting tales from incident—filled tours with the likes of Pavement, Cat Power, The Mountain Goats and many more.
Graeme Jefferies first emerged in 1981 with New Plymouth post—punk band Nocturnal Projections alongside his brother Peter Jefferies. Graeme and his brother went on to form This Kind of Punishment in 1983, a project that embraced DIY home—recording to produce a series of powerful and adventurous records released by the seminal indie label Flying Nun. Jefferies brief time as a solo artist soon followed the demise of This Kind of Punishment, and saw the release of Messages from the Cakekitchen, an album Byron Coley called "one of the most beautifully despairing works in the history of recorded music" in Spin magazine when it was re—released by Chicago label Ajax in 1993. Through the '90s and '00s, Jefferies released over a dozen albums with The Cakekitchen on indie labels like Homestead, Flying Nun, Merge and Raffmond while touring across the UK, France, Germany, Russia and the US as his music took him around the world.
Time Flowing Backwards exposes stories of intense collaboration and DIY innovation, records made in hallways and houses rather than plush studios and a dedication to produce challenging and remarkable songs that combine to make for a truly original and inimitable inside story.

Graeme Jefferies' profile page

Graeme Jefferies first emerged in 1981 with New Plymouth post—punk band Nocturnal Projections alongside his brother Peter Jefferies. Graeme and his brother went on to form This Kind of Punishment in 1983, a project that embraced DIY home—recording to produce a series of powerful and adventurous records released by the seminal indie label Flying Nun. Jefferies brief time as a solo artist soon followed the demise of This Kind of Punishment, and saw the release of Messages from the Cakekitchen, an album Byron Coley called "one of the most beautifully despairing works in the history of recorded music" in Spin magazine when it was re—released by Chicago label Ajax in 1993. Through the '90s and '00s, Jefferies released over a dozen albums with The Cakekitchen on indie labels like Homestead, Flying Nun, Merge and Raffmond while touring across the UK, France, Germany, Russia and the US as his music took him around the world. Jefferies currently lives in Wellington, New Zealand.