release date: Sep. 1987
format: digital
[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,16]
producer: Gary Smith
label: 4AD Records - nationality: USA
Tracklist: A) 1. "Caribou" - 2. "Vamos" - 3. "Isla de Encanta" - 4. "Ed Is Dead" - - B) 1. "The Holiday Song" - 2. "Nimrod's Son" - 3. "I've Been Tired" - 4. "Levitate Me"
8 track album debut of Pixies. The ep was released on 4AD Records in 1987 but already a year later when the debut album Surfer Rosa came out, a new bonus edition was released, which includes both the ep and the debut on one cd (as a reissue of Surfer Rosa). The band consists of Black Francis [aka Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV, his actual birth name! aka Black Francis, and later when he went solo: Frank Black] on guitar and lead vocals, Joey Santiago on lead guitar, Kim Deal on bass and vocals, and David Lovering playing drums. They signed with British independent record label 4AD and released this as remixes from a demo tape. Although the 8 tracks had been hand-picked from their demo recordings it's really a variety of their trademarks. It features songs in Spanish, songs with nice harmonies and electrifying noise rock outbursts, and in that respect also demonstrates a powerful but varied potential.
I bought the extended cd version of Surfer Rosa but never really saw it as a huge benefit as the tracks from the ep follow right after the debut, which makes it a bland experience. I prefer keeping things apart. The ep is like a drawing sketch or a rough stone, whereas the debut has a certain and much more distinct direction, and they're also produced in different ways, but still it's nice to hear this raw and not so well-produced short album as an initial state with less direction.
