Seattle Subsonic

Black Francis + Wife = Grand Duchy

February 9th, 2009

I think I’ll preface this with the fact that Pixies are my No. 1 Favorite Band Of All Time. Basically, in my eyes, Black Francis can do no wrong (outside of his tiff with Kim Deal, but they’re both crazy, so, really, whose fault was it?). I haven’t listened to every Catholics record (there’s EIGHT of them, for chrissakes), or heard every single solo album (there’s eight of THEM, for chrissakes!) Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV has released over the past decade and a half. The man is prolific, by every definition of the word. But when I heard about his new project with his wife Violet Clark, I was intrigued. And because they live in Eugene, my increasingly liberal interpretation of the word “local” has dictated that I write a little feature about them.

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Petits Fours is the debut record from Grand Duchy, and it’s plainly apparent that this a joint effort from both members, and decidedly not a Black Francis album. For starters, there are synths–SYNTHS! Secondly, Clark provides at least half of the vocal work. Third, there is a definite playfulness to these songs that hardcore Frank Black fans might not recognize, or even appreciate. Grand Duchy may be Francis attempting to appeal to a new fan base; it may be the effort of an artist stuck in a creative and stylistic rut; but, more likely, it’s the refreshing product of a man simply ready to have a bit of fun with his wifey.

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Four tracks are currently streaming on the band’s myspace, two of which will be released February 23rd as the three-song digital-only Lovesick EP from Cooking Vinyl. The full-length is due February 16th in Europe, but not until April 14th in the US of A. “Fort Wayne”, from Petits Fours, is apparently the first song the duo wrote together and opens with a high-pitched Francis rhyming to an easy drum beat and an acoustic strum. Clark jumps in with some tender la la la’s and a verse of her own. She might be singing in French. They threw in a crunchy monster bass flourish at the very end for kicks. “Lovesick”, featured on both the EP and LP, might be the first dance song Black Francis has ever written. Don’t quote me on that, but it certainly has an unfamiliar bounciness to it. Clark’s voice and keyboards, coupled with Francis’ peppy guitar, remind me immediately of Metric. I may be biased, but the couple just might be on to something here. No tour dates yet, but if and when that happens, I ain’t gonna miss it.

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The press release from Cooking Vinyl on the band’s “origin” contained this choice quote from Francis: “She was innocent. I hadn’t felt innocent for years. She digs the 80′s. I had spent the latter part of the 80′s doing my part to destroy the 80′s. Our second recording session involved a fair amount of shouting and throwing things…” Awesome.