Pixies: Bossanova (2026 remaster) [4AD]

Why you'll love it

This 2026 edition is freshly remastered by Kevin Vanbergen. Bossanova reached No. 3 on the UK Albums Chart, and "Velouria" and "Dig for Fire" both went top 20 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart.

This edition

• Remastered
• 2026 remaster by Kevin Vanbergen

About the album

After the Doolittle tour wrapped in January 1990, Black Francis, Joey Santiago and David Lovering swapped Boston for Los Angeles, moving into the same apartment complex as producer Gil Norton. Kim Deal stayed in the UK to make the Breeders' first record with Steve Albini before joining them. The sessions began at Cherokee Studios, then moved to Master Control when the desk at Cherokee started picking up pirate radio, a fix arranged by Rick Rubin's secretary after a chance meeting in a bar.

Many of the songs were written in the studio, Black Francis scribbling lyrics on napkins minutes before he sang them, and the album has a dreamy, surf-guitar glide all its own. It opens with "Cecilia Ann," a surf instrumental, before "Rock Music" blows the doors off. "Velouria" and "Dig for Fire" are two of the band's loveliest singles, "Allison" is a two-minute sprint, and "Blown Away," written in Spain and cut with Norton in Berlin, rides a huge chorus.

It's the Pixies at their most cosmic and melodic, a short hop from the noise of Doolittle to the shimmering pop that bands spent the next decade borrowing. While making it they shared an apartment block with Saturday Night Live's Garrett Morris and the hair-metal band White Lion, which is about as Los Angeles as a sentence gets.

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Tracklist

Listen

On 4AD (cat# 4AD0903LP), a reissue of the 1990 album.