Why You Should Carve Your Own Nook While Paying Thanks To Those Who Came Before

Back in 1993, as the dawn of a new musical era broke and the heavily produced miasma that defined a large part of the '80s gradually dissipated, Pixies called it quits. The sound they had created — quintessentially their own — was to stand for many years to come, but the band as a physical entity could no longer sustain itself, and so its members drifted apart, went on to other things, leaving little behind them save a legacy that at the time didn't seem that large.

History would disprove this, however. The EP and four albums that appeared between 1987 and 1991 indeed stand tall today as defining recordings; a throwback to a time when Pixies were on their own as the guitar band of the late '80s. They did call it quits though, amongst much animosity, no one thinking that some 23 years later, we'd be on the cusp of another Pixies recording (their second since Trompe Le Monde in '91). It's been a turbulent couple of decades, it's been well documented, and so this is a new era - one fuelled by the past. An almost mythical past, but one very much about what's happening right now, make no mistake.

"I'm a lover of music that loves to hear what I can contribute to something to make it work."

Paz Lenchantin became the band's new bass player, in place of Kim Deal (and, briefly, Kim Shattuck), in late 2013, not long after they released Indie Cindy, their first record since Trompe Le Monde. Lenchantin, whose background includes A Perfect Circle, Zwan and The Entrance Band among many others, is the newest Pixie, and has just recorded her first work with them, the recently released Head Carrier.

"We're just doing what sounds good, what's good for the songs," she muses on a new record which inevitably will be compared to the likes of Surfer Rosa and Doolittle. "The way I see it, we all got in a room together and got our instruments strapped on, and once I strap my instrument on I really wanna rock, so I started playing whatever was handed to me... we're all in a room together and we're trying to figure it out, without too much thought as to the end result.

"I think Tom [Dalgety], the producer, did an incredible job in the narrative thread of it all, putting the songs together in an eloquent order that tells its own story. When I listen to it all the way through to the end in order, it really shines a light on what the songs were when we were recording it. I wasn't thinking about [the past], but I think this one tells its own story from track one to track 12."

Head Carrier had been a while in the making, vocalist and songwriter Charles Thompson (aka Black Francis) and guitarist Joey Santiago having been throwing around ideas since the release of Indie Cindy. It gradually grew, Lenchantin becoming a part of the process, graduating (so to speak) from touring member to fully-fledged recording member.

"My take on what I [now] do, is I try and do what is right for the song," she explains on stepping into this role. "The song has the idea, and I'm just putting my ability to that idea, I'm giving the song what it wants, and that's my sound. It wants me to do something, and I just want to do whatever it wants me to do, and be able to be flexible enough at this point, to have the ability to do whatever the song wants. People ask, how does that style work with that? As an individual, I'm a lover of music that loves to hear what I can contribute to something to make it work."

Lenchantin has fit into this album almost seamlessly, at least on the surface, bringing to the song as she says, whatever it needs to work. The opening track, the title track, is instantly recognisable as a Pixies' song within the first five seconds, due to the bass playing - she's taken on the style the band has become known for, because that's what that particular song needed. Further cementing her new position, Lenchantin had a hand in writing one of the tracks on the record, All I Think About Now.

"It just came at the last minute, a week before the recording process ended," she's been quoted as saying. "I came up with some chords which I showed Charles, and he really liked it and he put some lyrics to it." The song is, essentially, a thank you letter, or a tribute, to Deal, whose spot Lenchantin obviously now occupies. It's a strong song, and it takes pride of place in a record which stands up, not as 'another Pixies album', but as an album on its own, one of which the band are understandably very happy.

"Yes," Lenchantin smiles in agreement. "When we left the studio, it felt compete, there was nothing left out."