Pixies (EP)

Pixies is a 2002 EP release of the (mostly) previously unissued material from Pixies' original 17-track demo tape (known to Pixies aficionados as The Purple Tape), recorded at Fort Apache Studios in March 1987 by Gary Smith. Eight of the tracks from the session were released in 1987 as the band's debut, Come On Pilgrim and the remaining nine were sourced for this release by SpinART Records in the U.S., Cooking Vinyl in the UK and Sonic Unyon Records in Canada.

Pixies
EP by Pixies
Released	July 9, 2002
Recorded	March 1987
Studio	Fort Apache Studios, Boston, Massachusetts
Genre	Alternative rock
Length	16:30
Language	English
Label	spinART
Producer	Gary Smith
Pixies chronology
Trompe le Monde (1991) Pixies (2002) EP1 (2013)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]
Blender	[2]
NME	5/10[3]
Pitchfork Media	6.4/10[4]
Robert Christgau	A-[5]
Rolling Stone	[6]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[7]

Track listing

All songs written by Black Francis, except "In Heaven" by Peter Ivers.

1. "Broken Face" – 1:23
2. "Build High" – 1:41
3. "Rock a My Soul" – 1:40
4. "Down to the Well" – 2:36
5. "Break My Body" – 2:00
6. "I'm Amazed" – 1:40
7. "Here Comes Your Man" – 2:50
8. "Subbacultcha" – 2:52
9. "In Heaven (Lady in the Radiator Song)" – 1:43

The Purple Tape

The Purple Tape was a demo that the band recorded in three days during their first studio session in 1987.[1] The track listing is as follows:

1. "Levitate Me" – 2:30 †
2. "The Holiday Song" – 2:08 †
3. "I've Been Tired" – 2:36 †
4. "Break My Body" – 2:00
5. "Down to the Well" – 2:36
6. "Rock a My Soul" – 1:40
7. "I'm Amazed" – 1:40
8. "Build High" – 1:41
9. "In Heaven (Lady in the Radiator Song)" – 1:43
10. "Caribou" – 3:17 †
11. "Here Comes Your Man" – 2:50
12. "Subbacultcha" – 2:52
13. "Vamos" – 3:10 †
14. "Broken Face" – 1:23
15. "Nimrod's Son" – 2:15 †
16. "Isla De Encanta" – 1:42 †
17. "Ed Is Dead" – 2:32 †

† Appeared on the band's debut EP, Come On Pilgrim.

"Down to the Well" and "Rock a My Soul" from this session have been previously released on the Sounds Waves 3 EP, which was given away with Sounds magazine sometime in 1988.

Several of the tracks on the tape appeared in later albums (albeit rerecorded), such as "I'm Amazed", "Broken Face", and "Break My Body" on Surfer Rosa, "Here Comes Your Man" on Doolittle, a live version of "In Heaven" on the single for "Gigantic", "Down to the Well" on Bossanova, "Build High" on the single for Planet of Sound, and a revised "Subbacultcha" on Trompe Le Monde.[8] A studio recording of the cover of "In Heaven (Lady in the Radiator Song)", from the surrealist David Lynch film Eraserhead, features on the demo.

The original "Subbacultcha" and "I'm Amazed" both had a different chorus line to later releases, which were both dropped for apparently sounding too weak. The removed chorus from "Subbacultcha" later appeared as the basis for "Distance Equals Rate Times Time", a separate song immediately following the revised "Subbacultcha" on Trompe le Monde.

A version of "Tame" that appears on some bootlegs [9] is purported to come from these sessions, but this is not true.

Personnel

Credits adapted from the album's liner notes.[10]

Pixies

• Black Francis – vocals, guitar
• Kim Deal – bass, vocals
• Joey Santiago – lead guitar
• David Lovering – drums

Technical

• Gary Smith – producer, original cassette design
• Paul Q. Kolderie – engineer
• Andrew Swainson – design
• Steve Hoffman – mastering

References

1. Allmusic review
2. Dolan, Jon. "Pixies - Blender". Blender. Archived from the original on 2009-12-22. Retrieved 2009-06-14.
3. NME review
4. Pitchfork Media review
5. Robert Christgau. "The Pixies: Consumer Guide Reviews: Pixies [SpinArt, 2002]". robertchristgau.com. Retrieved 5 September 2017.
6. Rolling Stone review
7. Wolk, Douglas (2004). "The Pixies". The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 640–41. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
8. The bridge of "Subbacultcha" also formed the main riff of "Distance Equals Rate Times Time" on the same album.
9. Discogs - PurpleTape2 unofficial compilation CD 2003 - Fonographica Ltda FGACD102 Brazil
10. "Pixies: Pixies". Discogs.com. Retrieved on August 19, 2020.