Pixies Visit the Fairy Netherworld in ‘Human Crime’ Video

Pixies have reawakened after a nearly three-year, Covid-enforced hiatus, with the alt-rock legends dropping the video for their new single “Human Crime.”

Penned by Frank Black a.k.a. Black Francis a.k.a. Charles Thompson and recorded in Los Angeles in the fall of 2021, the track marks Pixies’ first new music since their 2019 LP Beneath the Eyrie.

Bassist Paz Lenchantin directed the “Human Crime” video, which is set in the netherworld of fairies. “The storyline is loosely based on an ‘inside joke’ between Charles and me about going on tour. How we go through a door from our reality state into the altered state of becoming and being a Pixie,” Lenchantin said in a statement. The video was filmed at Santa Monica’s Gold Diggers Bar and the San Pedro abandoned bunkers.

“Human Crime” is likely the first offering from Pixies’ next album, as Black Francis recently revealed to the Guardian, “I’ve put together about 40 songs for the current Pixies record”; that’s in addition to building a chicken coop and making Tempah, as Francis told Rolling Stone he spent his Covid quarantine.

After the band’s 2021 tour was nixed due to the Delta variant, Pixies will play three U.S. shows later this month before embarking on a European trek later this year.