Music Arcades: Various: Pixies Fuckin' Die (A Tribute)

Duh! I've only just realised — or maybe I realised before, forgot, and only just remembered — that the reason that unknown indie bands do tribute albums is that they think it will increase their chances of being discovered by fans of the artist to whom they're paying tribute.

I ordered this from Mother West along with a slew of other releases, mostly with LD Beghtol singing (including Flare and Moth Wranglers records). Aside from Jarboe, LD's Moth Wranglers were, and remain, the only act I've ever heard of.

It quickly becomes clear that Pixies are not a good subject for a tribute (though there have been plenty of attempts). If you try and out-pixie the originals, you're going to fail. Obviously. The alternative is to gut a song and completely reconstruct it, or to give it a 'sensitive' chamber pop treatment. Either way, you risk losing the Pixies fans you sought to attract. I thought Moth Wranglers would take the latter approach, as it kind of keeps faith with the 4AD aesthetic. And they kind of do in the second half of No. 13 Baby, but the first half has lots of effects on the vocal, and slows the song down… and doesn't really do it for me.

I was surprised at how relatively few of the songs I recognised, until I remembered that I only ever owned one Pixies CD and one LP. I think Lucy might have played me Bossanova once, but I couldn't swear to it.