Head Carrier cover art
Good news for Pixies fans. Indie Cindy, a collection of 3 EPs that came out in 2014, failed to recapitulate the band’s brilliance (Pitchfork rudely gave the release 2.5 out of 10 points), but there are signs that the Pixies’ next album—the first since 1992’s Trompe Le Monde to be conceived as a full studio album—will please fans considerably more.
The album is to be called Head Carrier, and indie rock aficionados got a taste of what the album will sound like when it provided an advance opportunity to hear one of the songs, called “Um Chagga Lagga”:
It’s not exactly “Crackity Jones,” but it sounds passably close to vintage Pixies to my ears (not that that’s the only benchmark—merely reflecting the pressures to come through the band is actually facing). Frank Black told BBC 6 Music that the new album has “a bit of early-Pixies slosh in it” and is reminiscent of Doolittle—that could mean anything but overall has to be counted as promising. You can pre-order Head Carrier here.
In the BBC interview, Black discusses a song on Head Carrier featuring vocals by the band’s new bassist, Paz Lenchantin. (Kim Shattuck of the Muffs served as bassist for a European tour as well as some U.S. dates in 2013 after Deal’s departure from the reunited band.)
Lenchantin agreed to sing on the album, as long as Black wrote the lyrics. Black asked what the song should be about, and Lenchantin replied, “You have to write about Kim Deal ... like a thank-you letter.”
I’d give anything to see the expression Black made at that suggestion. Pixies fans are well aware that Black and Deal have not always gotten along so well. In one incident, the Pixies’ lawyers had to meet with Deal in 1990 after a contentious gig in Stuttgart, after which Deal refused to play a date in Frankfurt. Deal’s contributions on the band’s final album Trompe Le Monde were noticeably limited (her voice is seldom heard on the album).
In any case, the new song about Deal is called “All I Think About Now,” and apparently Black acceded to Lenchantin’s request.
Here’s the band at the Brixton Academy, June 26, 1991:
via Pitchfork
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
The Pixies ‘unplugged’ at the Newport Folk Festival (full set)
Dogs, cats, goats and other animals cover Pixies’ ‘Where Is My Mind?’