Pod

Brand new sealed LP album reissue.

Pod is the debut album by the American alternative rock band the Breeders, released on 4AD in May 1990. The group began when the Pixies' Kim Deal and Throwing Muses' Tanya Donelly became friends in 1988 and decided they would like to create music together. Abandoning their initial idea of focusing on dance music, they recorded a country-influenced demo with musicians including violinist Carrie Bradley and bassist Ray Holiday in 1989. When 4AD cofounder Ivo Watts-Russell heard the demo, he offered them money to re-record the songs for an album release.

For the album session, Steve Albini was engineer, Josephine Wiggs replaced Halliday on bass, Britt Walford played drums, and both Deal and Donelly played guitar. Following two weeks of practicing in England, the Breeders recorded Pod at the Palladium studio in Scotland. Albini recorded the group quickly, and focused more on getting good sounds from the musical equipment than on trying to improve the musicians' performances. Critics have discussed similarities between Pod and the Pixies' music, and commented favorably or unfavorably on Pod's relative quality to that band's work. The album has been noted for its minimal instrumentation, and for its sexual, dark, and feminine lyrics.

Pod's cover was designed by Vaughan Oliver and photographed by Kevin Westerberg; the artwork depicts Oliver doing a fertility dance wearing a belt of eels. It reached number 22 in the UK and number 73 in the Netherlands. Nirvana's Kurt Cobain rated the album as one of his favorites of all time, and Pitchfork ranked it number 81 on its list of best albums of the 1990s.