Pixies Mark 40 Years With Remastered 'Trompe Le Monde' and 'Bossanova'

Pixies released remastered editions of 'Trompe Le Monde' and 'Bossanova' on September 11 through 4AD, marking the band's 40th anniversary and the 35th year since 'Trompe Le Monde' first appeared.

The two reissues put the band's most adventurous period back in circulation. 'Bossanova', from 1990, found Pixies working with surf guitars, science-fiction imagery and dreamier textures while keeping the volatile energy of their earlier records. 'Trompe Le Monde', released in 1991, pushed that approach further — louder, faster, stranger.

The tracklist still makes the case. "Planet Of Sound" is frantic and loud. "Alec Eiffel" pairs jagged guitars with an insistent melody. "U-Mass" carries the snarl of the early-90s alternative rock boom. "Head On" is the band's cover of The Jesus and Mary Chain, and "Motorway To Roswell" turns an extraterrestrial narrative into something unexpectedly beautiful, as the source describes it.

Both records capture the original lineup — Black Francis, Kim Deal, Joey Santiago and David Lovering — at what the announcement calls their most fearless. The albums' habit of jumping between ideas without warning became a defining trait of the Pixies sound: a song opens on a massive riff, drifts into melody, and ends before the listener has settled.

Who did the remastering, and what else is coming?

Kevin Vanbergen handled the new editions. He has been working through the band's tape archive to produce high-resolution masters and new Dolby Atmos mixes across the catalogue. His prior archival work includes 'Pixies At The BBC, 1988-91' and the 'Complete B-Sides' collection — the recordings surrounding the band's early years already have a paper trail.

The anniversary project also includes previously unreleased material dating from 1987 to 1991. That is the concrete news for collectors: unheard studio-era content, not just repackaged catalog. What form that material takes, and how much of it exists, the announcement does not specify.

What does this change for listeners?

For anyone who already owns the original pressings, the practical gains are the high-resolution masters and the Atmos mixes — the sort of upgrade that rewards close listening, where a guitar detail surfaces or a bass line sits differently in the mix. For newcomers, the reissues offer the cheapest entry point into the band's strongest run.

The skeptical question is whether a 40th-anniversary remaster is a musical event or a catalogue-management exercise. The source argues the former: it claims returning to 'Trompe Le Monde' "doesn't feel like a history lesson" and remains "unpredictable, wonderfully abrasive and packed with songs that sound like nobody else's." That is a promotional claim, but the records' influence on alternative rock — which the announcement notes stretches well beyond their release years — is a matter of record.

Forty years in, the band is betting that the material still argues for itself. On the evidence of these two albums, it does.