Music and Recording Features

If there's one word that best describes the sound of the Boston-bred alt-rock quartet known as Pixies, it has to be "dynamics." It's a musical milieu Pixies have deftly presented for 37 years and counting, right from the outset of the sinister janglefest known as "Caribou," the opening track on their inaugural September 1987 EP on 4AD, Come On Pilgrim.

From there, short, sanguine, sweet, succinctly titled songs like "Debaser," "Velouria," "Monkey Gone to Heaven," "Gigantic," "Here Comes Your Man," "Gouge Away," and "Where Is My Mind?" have all served to cement the bedrock of Pixies' planet of sound. Chief Pixies songwriter and vocalist/guitarist Black Francis—born Charles Thompson—recently described it in an interview for Stereophile as this: "Let's be quiet. Now, let's be loud. Let's be whispering. Now, let's be explosive." That's a precise four-sentence descriptor not only of their entire prior CV but also of Pixies' latest, and ninth studio album, the forebodingly titled The Night the Zombies Came, which was released by BMG in October 2024.

Boris Blank has a cold, and three days after meeting him in his hometown of Zurich, I do too. This seems apt. Metaphorically, he's been infecting me for decades.

For almost 45 years, Yello, the pioneering Swiss band that Blank formed with singer Dieter Meier, has created witty electropop that provokes joy and awe in attentive listeners. You can dance to most of this music, of course—it's often hard not to—but its allure, its spell, goes deeper. For one thing, Yello's music is delightfully visual. Cinema for the ears.

Jazz leads a hand-to-mouth existence. It was born in the red light district of New Orleans in the early 20th Century, and has never fully overcome its disreputable origins. Jazz lacks the support from governments, foundations, and rich donors that other, more decorous art forms enjoy. Jazz is too much of the street to be considered high culture, yet its audience is tiny compared to the masses who consume popular music. Pop stars like Taylor Swift perform in huge stadiums. Important jazz musicians play the Bar Bayeux in Brooklyn.