The Breeders - The Last Splash
- FaceOff - עימות חזיתי
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Written By: Moti Kupfer
Release date - 30.08.1993
"Envy, lust and [the desire for] honor put a man out of the world." - Pirkei Avot 4:21.
Elsewhere in Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Yehoshua says: "An evil eye, the evil inclination, and hatred of others remove a person from the world."
Almost from the moment "Pixies" were formed in 1986, disagreements and tensions began to surface between the band's principal songwriter, Black Francis, also known as Frank Black, and the band's secondary songwriter and bassist, Kim Deal, who increasingly had creative ambitions of her own.
By 1989, tensions between Francis and Deal had reached breaking point. During the "Doolittle" tour, Francis reportedly threw a guitar toward Deal during a show in Stuttgart, while Deal later retaliated by nearly refusing to perform at a show in Frankfurt. Eventually, the two stopped speaking to each other altogether, and "Pixies" went on hiatus.
Kim Deal used the break from "Pixies" to establish "The Breeders". With her new band, she could finally set the tone and take creative control. Songs and ideas that had been pushed aside during her years with "Pixies" suddenly had somewhere to go.
"The Breeders" was actually a name Kim and her twin sister Kelley Deal had already used for a band they played in during the early 1980s. The name came from gay slang for heterosexuals, something Kim found amusing. As she later explained, she had heard the expression used in the gay community to describe straight couples and was fascinated by the slightly repulsed way in which the word could be used.
The original incarnation of "The Breeders" featured Kim Deal, former "Throwing Muses" guitarist Tanya Donelly, Josephine Wiggs on bass, Carrie Bradley on violin and Britt Walford on drums.
Their debut album, "Pod", generated plenty of critical attention despite modest sales. It also found one particularly important admirer in Kurt Cobain, who repeatedly cited it among his favorite albums and praised "The Breeders" as a major influence.
By the time the band began moving toward its second album, the lineup had changed. Tanya Donelly left to form "Belly", while Kim's twin sister Kelley Deal joined on guitar, alongside drummer Jim Macpherson. This lineup of Kim Deal, Kelley Deal, Josephine Wiggs and Macpherson played its first show together in June 1992 before supporting "Nirvana" and appearing at Glastonbury.
Meanwhile, "Pixies", who had returned from their hiatus to tour and record, were approaching the end. In early 1993, Black Francis announced that the band was finished. Joey Santiago received a phone call, while the other members reportedly learned of the breakup afterward, with Deal famously receiving the news by fax.
Kim Deal was now free to concentrate completely on "The Breeders", a band that had effectively existed as her side project while "Pixies" were still active.
And the timing could hardly have been more dramatic.
Only months after "Pixies" fell apart, Kim Deal had her answer exploding across MTV.
"Cannonball", the first single from "The Breeders"' second album, "Last Splash", was released in August 1993, shortly before the album arrived on August 30, 1993. Its strange, playful and instantly recognizable video was co-directed by "Sonic Youth"'s Kim Gordon and a young Spike Jonze, still near the beginning of his career as a music-video director. Jonze would go on to direct some of the defining videos of the decade, including "Beastie Boys"' "Sabotage" the following year.
With "Cannonball", what had once been Deal's escape from "Pixies" suddenly became something much bigger. "The Breeders" were no longer merely a side project, and Kim Deal was no longer standing in somebody else's creative shadow.
Lyrically, "Cannonball" portrays someone behaving recklessly under the influence of love and desire, but the song's real added value lies in the brilliantly sharp dynamics between loud and quiet, slow and fast, as the instruments constantly pull the listener from one extreme to another.
There is little doubt that these sudden shifts in tempo and dynamics, combined with Kim Deal's heavily distorted vocals, created in part by singing through a harmonica microphone, helped give "The Breeders" their first major international breakthrough. British music magazine "Melody Maker" named "Cannonball" its Single of the Year for 1993.
The second single, "Divine Hammer", did not make quite the same impact, but its infectious guitar riff and Kim Deal's distinctive voice still made it one of the album's standout moments.
Lyrically, "Divine Hammer" explores the complexities of love and desire, using the image of the "divine hammer" as a metaphor for the overwhelming, almost transformative force of longing.
The third single, "Saints", moves through similar emotional territory, reflecting on desire, attraction and the complexities of human connection, all wrapped in the loose, slightly ragged energy that gives "The Breeders" so much of their character.
"Last Splash" became the commercial breakthrough that "Pod" had never been. The album eventually sold more than one million copies in the United States and was certified Platinum by the RIAA, transforming "The Breeders" from Kim Deal's side project into one of the defining alternative-rock bands of the early 1990s.
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music.
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