Steve Albini, the musician and frontman of the choice rock bands Massive Black and Shellac, who has died from a coronary heart assault aged 61, was extra extensively identified for his large checklist of credit as a producer, or – as he most well-liked to be known as – recording engineer, of albums by unbiased artists from the mid-Eighties to the current.
Notable recordings bearing the Albini imprint embody Pixies’ Surfer Rosa (1988), the Breeders’ Pod (1990), PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me (1993), the Auteurs’ After Homicide Park (1996) and Manic Road Preachers’ Journal for Plague Lovers (2009). He collaborated with Robert Plant and Jimmy Web page on Strolling Into Clarksdale (1998), recorded The Weirdness with punk pioneers the Stooges (2007), and labored with Low-cost Trick and the B52s’ Fred Schneider, however sought to deal with unknown acts and superstars equally.
Reflecting on working with Albini on Rid of Me, PJ Harvey famous how “you’ll be able to really feel the sound he information, and that’s why I wished to work with him, as a result of all I ever wished is for us to be recorded and to sound like we do after we’re taking part in collectively in a room, and that’s by no means occurred earlier than”.
Amongst his best-known tasks was Nirvana’s third album, In Utero (1993). This was at some extent when Nirvana might have veered into the business rock mainstream after the colossal success of Nevermind, however they opted for the Albini philosophy, which he described as “bang a report out in a few days, with top quality however minimal ‘manufacturing’ and no interference from the entrance workplace [ie record company] bulletheads”. The album was a business and significant smash, however Albini had refused on precept to take percentage-point earnings on it, passing up a not-so-small fortune.
He expounded his ideas on the way in which through which major-label report offers are structured in opposition to the artist’s curiosity in a celebrated article for The Baffler journal, The Downside With Music (1993). His personal profession as a musician and report producer, as one observer put it, “defied style conventions”, and he dedicated himself to “longstanding advocacy for creative freedom and aversion to mainstream commercialism”.
His first band was Massive Black, fashioned in 1981. The EP Lungs (1982) was their first recording (although it was created nearly single-handedly by Albini and a Roland TR-606 drum machine) on Ruthless Information, the operating of which Albini would later take over. The band launched their first studio album, Atomizer, in 1986, however dissolved in 1987, shortly earlier than the discharge of the second album, Songs About Fucking. Critics hailed Massive Black for his or her unsparing and confrontational sound, however have been typically uncomfortable with the subject material, which handled points similar to little one sexual abuse and racism.
Additionally controversial was Albini’s subsequent undertaking, Rapeman, its title taken from a infamous Japanese manga comedian. A so-called “put up hardcore” trio, they solely lasted from 1987 to 88, releasing a few singles, an EP and the album Two Nuns and a Pack Mule. Albini later regretted the group’s title, saying, “I can’t defend that title, particularly to somebody who has a private historical past that makes them significantly delicate to it.”
In 2021 he sought to make additional amends for varied outrage-provoking episodes in a Twitter thread, adopted by an interview with MEL Journal. “A whole lot of issues I stated and did from an ignorant place of consolation and privilege are clearly terrible and I remorse them. It’s no person’s obligation to miss that, and I do really feel an obligation to redeem myself.”
As a musician, he discovered his fullest expression with Shellac, the band he fashioned in 1992 with the bass participant Camilo Gonzalez (beforehand with Bare Raygun) and drummer Todd Coach (from Breaking Circus and Rifle Sport). Gonzalez was quickly changed by Bob Weston, from the Boston band Volcano Suns.
The band members handled Shellac as an ongoing facet undertaking, an method that seemingly freed them to experiment and discover. Their minimalist and angular method received them fanatical admirers, they usually have been considered definitive exponents of “noise rock”. The critic and musician John Robb known as them “the best rock band on the planet”.
Born in Pasadena, California, Albini was the son of Italian-American mother and father, Frank, a wildfire analysis scientist, and his spouse, Gina (nee Martinelli). In 1974 the household moved to Missoula, Montana, the place Albini attended Hellgate highschool. He began studying to play bass whereas recuperating from a damaged leg suffered in a bike accident, then switched to guitar. He additionally grew to become a contributor to Hellgate’s scholar newspaper, the Lance, the place his common column, Paparazzo, provoked controversy. “I polarise individuals,” he commented. “They both respect me or hate me … my column will be very annoying and so can I.” He additionally claimed that “I’ve a voice like a harpooned whale and I can’t carry a tune.”
In school he had turn into fascinated by punk bands such because the Ramones and the Intercourse Pistols, and had performed within the native punk ensemble Simply Ducky. Whereas at Northwestern College, Illinois, he grew to become a provocatively opinionated author for native music magazines, overlaying the Chicago punk scene, and spent many hours searching the Chicago report retailer Wax Trax!. He described the musical lifetime of the town as “an especially lively, very fertile scene the place all people was collaborating on each stage. The neighborhood that I joined after I got here to Chicago enabled me to proceed on with a life in music.”
He arrange his recording studio Electrical Audio in 1997, and engineered greater than 3,000 information throughout his lifetime, together with releases by Joanna Newsom, Low and Mogwai.
Shellac remained lively to the top of his life, with their seventh album, To All Trains, due for launch on 17 Might – although one of many previous six albums, The Futurist (1997) was a restricted launch for the band’s buddies and acquaintances solely, with precisely 779 copies manufactured.
The formidably clever Albini additionally discovered time for a wide range of pursuits outdoors the music scene. He was a high-stakes poker participant who loved profitable success in World Sequence of Poker tournaments, had been a top-flight billiards participant, liked baseball, and was a fine-dining fanatic. He appeared on the movie star chef Anthony Bourdain’s TV present Anthony Bourdain: Components Unknown, the place he managed to insert a critique of the capitalistic excesses of the music enterprise.
He’s survived by his spouse, Heather Whinna, a film-maker, and by his mom.
