Pixies frontman Frank Black (aka Black Francis) is reissuing twelve of his solo releases on vinyl via Demon Records. The first to be reissued is 2006’s Christmass on December 4, with 1996’s The Cult of Ray and B-sides compilation OddBalls to follow on February 12, 2021.

The Christmass reissue comes just in time for the holiday season and features acoustic recordings that aren’t really Christmas songs but fit into the Christmas atmosphere. There’s folky versions of several popular Pixies songs, including “Wave of Mutilation,” “Where Is My Mind?” and “Cactus,” as well as re-recordings of Black’s previous solo songs, “I Burn Today,” “Bullet” and “Nadine.” Most of the album is made up of acoustic live recordings, with just one quarter of them recorded in studios.

“Christmass is a collection of songs recorded in hotel rooms, nightclubs, and even a few actual recording studios,” Black reflected. “Some are standard live repertoire and some are new songs never to be revisited again, well, until now, sort of, so see what you think as needles drop.” It had previously only been available in CD format and will now be available at several different sites on 140 gram green vinyl. 

The Cult of Ray was Black’s third solo album, featuring singles “Men in Black,” “The Marsist” and “I Don’t Want to Hurt You (Every Single Time).” Black mentioned that it was recorded with the same band that he recorded seven albums with under the name Frank Black & The Catholics during the late ‘90s/early 2000s. It had been released on vinyl when it first came out, but this is its first vinyl reissue, available as a limited blue LP.

This is not the first time that OddBalls has been released on vinyl, with the last time being 2013, but now it will be available as a 140 gram silver vinyl. It was originally released in 2000, with notable cuts “Pray a Little Faster,” “Oddball” and “Man of Steel.” 

Black had a bit to say about how it came about, “There was once a time when even I was asked to provide additional content for auxiliary releases of main published works. It was great. They didn’t care what the new content was they just needed it. Yesterday. So awesome. I get to go back into the studio and obsess a little more with no one to bother me, except by then the bank was mostly blown so we did not have a lot of TIME. Well, sometimes, fuck time.”

Reissue Schedule (* marks albums previously released on vinyl)

12/4 Christmass
2/12 The Cult Of Ray *
2/12 Oddballs *
5/14 Francis Black Francis
7/2 Honeycomb
7/2 Fast Man Raider Man
8/27 Bluefinger
8/27 Live at the Hotel Utah Saloon
10/8 Svn Fngrs
10/8 Live in Nijmegen
11/27 NonStopErotik
11/27 Paley & Francis 

Photo credit: Raymond Flotat