Spin Art
2002
Pixies (Purple Tape)
About This Album
Most Pixies fans know that the mini-album Come On Pilgrim was taken from The Purple Tape, the 17-song demo the group cut during their first studio session in 1987. Fifteen years later, Pixies answer the nagging question, "What became of the rest of the demos?" While many of them appeared on bootlegs, this nine-song collection is a useful document for die-hard Pixies fans, not only because it compiles all the remaining demos in one place, but because it also sheds some light on the band's creative process. The Purple Tape is arguably the purest version of the Pixies' sound, buzzing with the vitality of the band laying down their crazed songs as quickly as possible -- 17 of them in three days -- and relatively free of the abrasive and glossy influences that producers Steve Albini and Gil Norton brought to their subsequent work. Interestingly, the remaining songs from The Purple Tape didn't all appear on the group's first full album, Surfer Rosa, though that's where several of them ended up; instead, the Pixies returned to these songs throughout their career, dispersing them in a surprisingly even fashion through Doolittle, Bossanova, and Trompe le Monde. As with any collection of demos, the main attraction here is in hearing what the band changed or discarded, and Pixies deliver the goods.
Track List (try track 3)

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