Electricity

Well, if nothing else, it’s a perfectly titled album — Electricity is indeed charged, sparking, livewire. Peter Jefferies followed his debut solo set, The Last Great Challenge In A Dull World, with a collection of songs that doubled down on the intensity both of that album’s darker moments, and his clangourous live performances. It’s not too hard to draw a line between Jefferies’ songs and the charged, spooked atmospheres of John Cale’s late ’70s / early ’80s music, though Jefferies is very much his own artist. There’s something about Electricity that’s more stream-of-consciousness, more improvised, more unpredictable than its precursor; the songs feel like they’re strung out across tightropes. A cover of Barbara Manning’s “Scissors” is a tender closer, a reminder of the emotional complexity at the core of Jefferies’ art.