Peter Jefferies and Wio – Peter Jefferies and Wio – 7″

Track Listing

1. Red Clover
2. Remain Over Me

Notes

There is a song in “It’s Time To Leave This World Behind” by de portables whose lyrics and whose music are inspired by a song by Peter Jefferies.

Unless you speak Dutch and you sleep with a copy of “The Last Great Challenge In A Dull World” under your pillow, the reference is not immediate.

For years every morning I have been painting covers for the records that I publish with my label, I find the inspiration in the lyrics of the songs.

For “Regenbomen” and “It’s Time To Leave This World Behind” the band sent me an English version of the song. It is the story of two children in a strand who saw a man talking to a little white parakeet. They buy a ticket for the bird. That very same man was already there a few years before, on an unknown beach trying to make his bird go home.

I have explored this theme many times on different covers.

I’ve known Wio for a lifetime and one of my main activities over the years has been to motivate him to give a follow up to his self-titled 2001 album, taking a break from de portables and his many projects.

Suddenly one day Wio tells me he has an idea for a new record and that idea will become “The Breakthrough Album”.

On the record there is a cover of “On An Unknown Beach”.

And so I thought that Peter Jefferies needed copies of both records and I sent him a box.

It doesn’t happen every day to paint something for the author of one of your favorite records.

The records made their way to New Zealand.

But could I really consider my task complete? Was I really done?

One day Peter Jefferies posted a picture of one of the covers I painted for him.

He had a new record out on Grapefruit, so maybe I could dare ask him something.

It was during the first lockdown that I took courage and asked Peter if he wanted to contribute a song to a compilation and it was during the pandemic that I received 3 songs from him.

Can you guess which was one of the three? A live version of “On An Unknown Beach”.

And so, during one of the loneliest springs of my life, I began to fantasize.

“Wio, what if I asked Peter Jefferies to collaborate on a song with you?”

This ep is born like this.

The songs were written by Peter and Wio, mixed by Peter and Victoria Singh, mastered by Chris Foreman. All the instruments, with the exception of the guitar which is by Wio, are by Peter.

The sound that comes near the end of the second verse of “Red Clover” is a fire siren, a warning signal that Peter recorded at 7.30pm on a Monday night in Okato, New Zealand.

If the beginning is the end, the end is the beginning, what is the beginning of the end?