Pixies – Surfer Rosa [Stereo] (Mobile Fidelity GAIN 2 Series Half-Speed Mastered Edition)

(AAA) — Lacquers cut from the original analog master tapes at half speed by Shawn Britton at Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab.

Pixies Surfer Rosa on Numbered-Edition 180g 33RPM LP from Mobile Fidelity: Audiophile Pressing Mastered from First-Gen Master Tapes Is Out of Print

#7 on Pitchfork’s Top 100 Favorite Records of the 1980s, #79 on Mojo’s The 100 Records That Changed the World, #315 on Rolling Stone’s The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time

1/4" / 15 IPS analog master to analog console to lathe

The Plymouth Rock on which alternative rock was founded, the Pixies’ Surfer Rosa forever altered the music environment—even if it did take most of the world a few years to catch up with its brilliance. Internationally acknowledged as a pioneering record, its rollercoaster blend of harsh and soft tempos, male and female singing, intense punk and bubblegum pop tones, dark and light quips, and off-kilter sensibilities is the influential equivalent of the Velvet Underground’s oft-cited 1967 debut.

The 1987 debut established the Pixies as otherworldly visionaries whose songs such as the insistent “Bone Machine,” badgering “Something Against You,” and sensual “Cactus” remain ahead of the curve. Having analog fanatic and noise aficionado Steve Albini working production ensured that the music would retain a requisite rawness and in-your-face sonic signature that paralleled the fundamentally chaotic, compulsive characteristics of the Pixies’ songs.

And now, thanks to the efforts of Mobile Fidelity engineers, you will truly hear this groundbreaking record as if you were experiencing it for the first time. Vivid, immediate, massive, and detailed, this is how Surfer Rosa was meant to be heard when Albini completed it and turned it into the label.

“The heaviness and hugeness of the room-reverberating drumbeat that begins the album-opening “Bone Machine” epitomizes the record’s forward impact, visceral punch, grinding crunch, and dynamic headroom. Rather than cluttering the mix with an avalanche of effects, Albini left space without sacrificing live detail or volatile oomph, shown to great effect on “Broken Face,” “Gigantic (there’s a piano—who knew?), and haunting “Where Is My Mind?,” which opens unto a sonic canyon that swallows the listener whole.”
–Bob Gendron, The Absolute Sound, September 2007

(Above description from MusicDirect.com)