This years Frank Black re-issue program continues with another three albums being issued on Vinyl for the first time and in the case of this one Frank Black Francis appealing to two core fan groups Pixies obsessives and Pere Ubu nuts, I really fall in the second camp and realizing the second album of this double set on white vinyl was recorded in Hackney with Two Pale Boys or Andy Diagram and Keith Moline Of Pere Ubu and all sorts of other musical infamy had me smiling and happy before I even heard it.
The first album Black Francis Demo is the demo cassette that Frank recorded on a boom box with Gary Smith ahead of his producing the first Pixies record Come On Pilgrim in 1987.
This is the sort of release that should be on a dodgy bootleg and not pristine vinyl, but lets face it being able to hear the rough vocal guide versions of these classic song is a fans holy grail and it's not too shabby for the less ardent fans either.
The second album Frank Black Francis is the Two Pale Boys plays The Pixies greatest hits with guest vocals from Frank Black as Andy Diagram and Keith Moline do to The Pixies what David Thomas had made them do to The Beach Boys and having recorded his vocals Frank left them to complete the album.
The Black Francis Demo disc opens side A with The Holiday Song played as a raw acoustic song with some very dark imagery, almost like Frank is in a dark catholic church trying to describe the artwork.
I'm Amazed is played fast and furiously while also feeling quite loose around the edges. Rock A My Soul takes some cool turns with some echo effects on the vocals that get quite desperate sounding in places.
Isla de Encanta has a great Spanish Guitar thing going on with Frank's tortured Spanish vocals really bringing it to life.
Caribou has a good sense of pain for the mistreatment of the Caribou in this very stripped to the bone's version, complete with vocal asides to let Gary know what the intentions are for the full band version.
Broken Face feels like you're holding your face after a really bad accident, with the details flying at us as the guitar strains to fill in all the horrible details. Build High comes on like a western Swing pop song with a few odd touches.
Nimrod's Son closes the a-side and is reason enough to buy the album to hear this incredible version that gets to the bitter core of the song and all the pain and suffering the events depicted cause, this is frightening and disturbing and tackles issues rarely mentioned anywhere let alone in song.
The B side opens with Ed Is Dead and it's played as a bittersweet song for poor old Ed, with some high keening vocals from Frank in between the verses set against some very basic strummed guitar.
Subbacultcha goes quite Dylanesque especially in the story telling aspect of the lyrics unfold between the star-crossed lovers trying to get along with each other while getting into all sorts of dangerous scrapes.
Boom Chickaboom is good and hissy but works in the way that the sparse guitar accentuates the almost Soda Shop Pop lyrics as it twists the formula to great effect as it gets darker and he dreams of some very odd things.
I've Been tired is darkly libidinous song of sex and desire wearing you out. Break My Body is a plea for supplication through pain and the desire to jump off a roof, Frank really sounds desperate.
Oh My Golly is a cool song for Rosa who sounds like it may be the same Rosa that made young Axel name a band after her.
The Black Francis demo album closes with Vamos played as a cool little Latin folk stomp with Frank sounding pained as he tells us why he needs to Vamos from New Jersey to California.
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The Frank Black Francis album and the C side opens with Caribou that now has all sorts of adornments that add a layer of Avant garage weirdness to the song, it is still stripped back but oh so intriguing.
Where is My Mind? Still has its signature beat, but now with some coolly odd percussion and lots of stereo effects that make the fractured fractals of sound work against the muted trumpet so you really have no idea where anyone's mind is.
Cactus has an almost Brechtian feel while being played like a Super Marionation soundtrack with all sorts of effects on the looped backing vocals and odd blasts of trumpet it is magnificent.
This version of Nimrod's Son is an odd jazz take on the sad tale of despair at who and what your father is capable of, with cool brass and keyboards making this slowly disturbing.
Levitate Me feels like they want to combine bells and brass as a magic formula for levitation.
Wave of Mutilation a song that gets stuck in my head just reading the song title let alone listening to it. This is as a brilliant re-imagining like it's been recorded in an underwater dub closet stripped to it's bones and very powerful indeed Two Pale Boys at their best.
Monkey Gone To Heaven has a surprisingly gentle pulsing feel to it as they pay tribute to that poor Monkey Gone To Heaven as the song breaks down the minimalist backing gives it a very different twist on the original.
Velouria sounds darker and more disturbed stripped back to its basic bare bone's acoustic guitars and brass with some proper weird electronic circuit bending business going on a fine way to close The C Side.
The d side opens with The Holiday Song and they go properly upbeat and happy sounding with really upbeat trumpets it's really jaunty and a total counterpoint to Franks vocals and of course the contents of the lyrics, as they do one of David Thomas's favorite kind of musical switcheroo's on it.
Into the White is full of dread and a very long tone that the rest of the music works around as it becomes more and more disturbing.
Is she Weird well of course she's weird if she's the object of Franks desire and has Mr Diagram building as claustrophobic a musical world as he can alongside the ever inventive Mr Moline.
Subbacultcha this time around is as weird and experimental as it comes taking us down into a weird netherworld of pretty much spoken word lyrics, I almost expected to hear calls of Frank Oh Frank to herald in a story like part, ala Two Pale Boys on Meadville having a Busman's Holiday but really this is just Franks own weird Subbacultcha.
The album closes with Planet Of Sound played semi-acoustic and rather insistent as the odd trumpets build that Planet Of Sound that splinters into several directions at once including a dank dub section as it slowly builds to this albums final climax.
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