Anyone who’s listened to the Pixies’ “Debaser” knows Black Francis sounds fairly deranged on that classic opener to 1989’s Doolittle. But give the isolated vocal track a listen, and, well, as Fluxblog’s Matthew Perpetua notes, the Pixies’ frontman “just sounds like a maniac screaming on the street.”

Over the past few weeks, the members of the Pixies — Black Francis, Joey Santiago, David Lovering and new bassist Kim Shattuck — have been treating fans to photos and video through a collection of new Twitter, Vine and Instagram accounts named “The Actual Pixies.”

Former Pixies bassist Kim Deal this week dropped the third installment in her new “Solo Series” of 7-inches, a two-song single (“Are You Mine?t” b/w “Wish I Was”), which you can buy digitally at the usual digital places or on vinyl via her site, KimDealMusic.com. This time, though, she’s got a video, too.

The Pixies will debut their new Kim Deal-less lineup with four Los Angeles concerts prior to their appearance at Riot Fest Chicago this September, to be followed by four more small club shows in New York City before the band embarks on a previously announced European tour.

The Pixies are now set to debut their new Kim Deal-less lineup at Chicago’s Riot Fest this September, joining a bill that includes The Replacements, Blondie, Violent Femmes, Mission of Burma, X, Dinosaur Jr and Peter Hook, among many others. The Pixies were added today alongside Joan Jett, TSOL and Suicidal Tendencies.

The Pixies today followed up last week’s free release of a surprise new track with more revelations, namely that the band is about to embark on a “massive global tour” to debut material off its follow-up to 1991’s Trompe le Monde with The Muffs frontwoman Kim Shattuck replacing the departed Kim Deal.

Two weeks after announcing the departure of bassist Kim Deal, the Pixies this morning surprised fans with the release of “Bagboy,” the band’s first new song since 2004 and one that sounds like may feature the backing vocals of the group’s now-former bassist. But it doesn’t.

Legendary independent record label 4AD — home in the ’80s and ’90s to the Pixies, Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil, Throwing Muses and so many more — will be the subject an exhaustive history this fall with the publication of Martin Aston’s new book “Facing the Other Way: The Story of 4AD.”

The Pixies this morning announced that bassist Kim Deal — who has spent much of this year touring with the reunited Last Splash-era lineup of The Breeders — has left the band , and, in a statement attributed to Black Francis, Joey Santiago and David Lovering, say “we will always consider her a member of the Pixies.”

Fans of Black Francis who plan to see the Pixies frontman’s solo-acoustic show in New York City next week who are older than 30 — and let’s face it, that’s a lot of us — might want to consider something they haven’t done in a couple decades: investing in a fake ID. Tickets are $15 cheaper for fans 30 and under.

The Pixies will be celebrated this fall in a brand new hardbound coffee-table book called “Pixies: A Visual History,” the first installment in a planned two-volume series designed to chronicle the legendary indie-rock act’s ascent, break-up, various solo projects and spin-off bands and, ultimately, its improbable reunion.

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the release of the Pixies’ landmark Surfer Rosa, which, if we’re to count Come On Pilgrim as an EP or “mini-LP,” was the band’s true debut album, featuring the instant classics “Bone Machine,” “Gigantic” and “Where Is My Mind?”

This week’s new releases include the first new David Bowie album in a decade, a “lost album” from Duran Duran spinoff TV Mania, a 2CD set of Jellyfish instrumentals, a Pogues 2CD best-of, a Pixies radio broadcast from 1991 and a live Cabaret Voltaire DVD filmed in 1992.