RIP Steve Albini

pjgh

pjgh

Joined
Thursday September 26, 2013
Location
Halifax, Republic of Yorkshire
www.independent.co.uk

Steve Albini, acclaimed Nirvana, Pixies and PJ Harvey producer, dead at 61

Steve Albini produced albums for the Breeders and Bush as well as fronting Big Black and Shellac
www.independent.co.uk www.independent.co.uk

Steve Albini, the prolific musician, producer and audio engineer, has died. He was 61.

Albini fronted the underground rock bands Big Black and Shellac, but was perhaps best known for his production and engineering work on classic albums including Nirvana’s In Utero, Pixies’ Surfer Rosa and PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me.
Click to expand...

Favourite Big Black song?
 
Last edited:
WiffWaff said:
Surfer Rosa… perfection on a lump of vinyl.
Click to expand...

You're not wrong there - I have bought that album several times now, vinyl, CD and remaster. Most recently, on heavyweight vinyl again and it is a delight to play. Rather than a mere collection of songs, albums are supposed to flow as a body of work; some albums are elevated beyond by their production and this is most certainly one of them.

To say his own bands were so raw and brash with apparent quick and dirty production, you can see that was quite deliberate and took some skill.
 
IMO as an engineer/producer Albini is the GOAT.

I was never really into the Pixies but a number of other albums he worked on. He was making challenging albums even til quite recently, the new Liturgy album released last year was an interesting one (a really divisive one for sure!).

I saw his band Shellac a few times, they were immense live. They have a new album out next week too.

I used to post on his studio's forum a while back. He was always open about sharing his set ups for fans. I remember someone asked about the guitar sound of their/my favourite albums of all time and he gave an almost absolute reply of microphones, cabs, and so on to get the sound in question.

@pjgh my memory is a bit shady but I have the vinyl for Songs about fucking. Around 20 years ago I used to be a bar DJ. I'd play songs from that before people got there, before switching to more bar friendly soul, funk and hiphop.
 
Nice @donnie_arko ... I used to DJ indie/alternative club nights in the early '90s and Kerosene was always a hoot! Goffs and Industrial types flicking lighters behind each others baggy jumpers and shirt tails to the refrain: "SET ME ON FIRRRRRE!".

Good times.
 
pjgh said:
Likewise. Bittersweet seeing these two fellas chatting.
Click to expand...

I used to watch Bourdain's No Reservations on Discovery, but I was late to see Parts Unknown on Netflix. When I found out Netflix were taking it off, I didn't have the time to binge it all so I watched a few episodes from each of the seasons from 5 to 12. There were only a few years between those seasons but AB looked to age decades in those few years. In the last season before he took his own life, he seemed to have really lost the sparkle in his eyes he had back in the days of No Reservations when he would get shit faced with his Russian & Vietnamese buddies you could see he loved so much.

On one of the channels I can never remember on Sky, they showed the entire back catalogue of Parts Unknown. I've been dipping into seeing them again, but the later episodes are a really hard watch.

Sorry for going off topic.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom