Come On Pilgrim (Pixies) - Дебютный мини-альбом 1987 года

1987 EP by Pixies

Come On Pilgrim is the debut mini album by the American alternative rock band Pixies, released on September 28, 1987, on 4AD. Produced by Gary Smith, the release consists of eight tracks from a seventeen song recording session that the band had recorded at Fort Apache Studios in March 1987. Signing the band based on the quality of the recordings, 4AD founder Ivo Watts Russell whittled its track listing down to eight songs, remixing them to become Come On Pilgrim. The remaining nine songs were subsequently released in 2002 as Pixies.

In March 1987, Pixies entered Boston's Fort Apache Studios with Fort Apache owner/record producer Gary Smith to record a demo tape. The resulting 17 song cassette, later dubbed "The Purple Tape", eventually found its way to Ivo Watts Russell, president and co founder of the influential British record label 4AD. Pixies' manager Ken Goes was also the manager of Throwing Muses, who had become the first American band to sign to 4AD a year earlier. Goes passed Pixies' demo tape on to Watts Russell, who walked the streets of New York listening to it on his Walkman and "absolutely adored it from day one". Despite initial hesitance to sign the band, seeing as how 4AD had already signed an American band from the same manager, he was convinced to do so by his girlfriend, Deborah Edgeley, a secretary for 4AD. However, Watts Russell felt that "there was too much that was just not that good" and insisted on choosing only eight of the 17 songs for release. "I felt that those eight songs were a bang in the face, left you wanting more, and I thought that the recorded versions of the other songs that were on the Purple Tape were not that great." Watts Russell intentionally chose not to include "Here Comes Your Man", feeling it was "too obviously commercial". which the Pixies quote in the song "Levitate Me". Of Norman, Francis said, "when I was 14 I really dug him. I dressed like him, I looked like him, he was my total idol." The artwork was conceived by Vaughan Oliver, with photography from Simon Larbalestier. The man in the "hair shirt" on the cover was a friend of Larbalestier's and the photograph was from a series of work Larbalestier was making based on The Temptation of Saint Anthony by Gustave Flaubert. A version of the song "Vamos" would appear on Pixies' next two releases: re recorded with Steve Albini for their first full length album, Surfer Rosa, and as a live B side on their first single, "Gigantic". Reflecting on Come On Pilgrim in 2022, Black Francis noted: "I was listening to Murmur by R. E. M. a lot just before Come on Pilgrim and that was hugely influential on me as a songwriter. I’m going to be cocky and say: we were even better than Murmur."

Come On Pilgrim includes two songs partly sung in Spanish ("Vamos" and "Isla de Encanta"), which drew upon some of Francis's experiences in Puerto Rico. (Isla de Encanta is an alteration of the island's nickname, Isla del Encanto, meaning "isle of enchantment".) Two songs explicitly mention incest: "Nimrod's Son" and "The Holiday Song". "I've Been Tired" refers metaphorically to sex and rock & roll culture, and there are four songs with overt religious references or language ("Caribou", "Nimrod's Son", "The Holiday Song" and "Levitate Me"). "Caribou" is about reincarnation. "Ed Is Dead" is about a brain damaged girl known to Francis who rode a bicycle with a transistor radio strapped to its handlebars, so she could play music.

The original 1987 UK release of Come On Pilgrim entered the UK indie album chart on 1987 10 24, spending 29 weeks on the chart and peaking at number 5. The album received far more attention from the music press in the UK than in the United States, and was reviewed in Q Magazine, Sounds and NME. The album failed to secure distribution in the United States when it was first released and was first issued in the U. S. in August 1988, when Rough Trade included it on their CD release of the band's first full length album, Surfer Rosa. At the same time, the two releases were issued on separate vinyl records by Rough Trade. That same month, 4AD also released Surfer Rosa and Come On Pilgrim on CD together in the UK. This has been the standard UK CD release ever since, only being out of print for about six months in 1998. Subsequent U. S. CD releases have split them in two. In 1992, Elektra Records issued Come On Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa on separate CDs in the U. S. After 4AD re acquired the band's US distribution rights in 2004, they were again released on CD separately; this version of Come On Pilgrim was the first CD release to carry the 4AD catalogue number (MAD 709).