Renowned US alt-rock producer and artist Steve Albini dies at 61
Steve Albini, the vocalist, guitarist and producer who was at the helm of many esteemed albums, has died aged 61 after a heart attack at his recording studio. Staff at the studio, Electrical Audio, confirmed the news to the Pitchfork website yesterday.
As well as fronting the bands Big Black, Rapeman and Shellac, who all pushed at the boundaries of postpunk and art-rock, Albini produced – or, to use his preferred term, engineered – albums by Nirvana, Pixies and PJ Harvey.
He was noted for his DIY and punk ethos, resisting streaming and refusing to take royalties from recordings he produced for other artists.
Shellac were preparing their first album since 2014, To All Trains, for release next week.
Albini was born in California in 1962. His musical inspirations came from the punk movement, chiefly the Ramones but also the weirder end of the genre with bands such as Devo and Pere Ubu. He moved to the suburbs of Chicago to study journalism, and started his own musical project, Big Black, a solo endeavour that soon became a quartet.
Their debut album, Atomizer, was released in 1986, and the second album, Songs About Fucking, became a landmark in the decade’s US punk scene, earning an admirer in Robert Plant, who later brought in Albini to produce his album with Jimmy Page, Walking Into Clarksdale.
Albini founded his next band, Rapeman, in 1987. Named after a Japanese manga, it was perhaps the most high-profile example of Albini’s eagerness to prod and provoke, and he later expressed regret for the band name, calling it “flippant”.
Albini said he wanted his next band to endure – and they did. Shellac, formed in 1992, became a singular light in the US art-rock scene. They released five albums, plus To All Trains.
Alongside his own music, he nurtured his craft behind the mixing desk. A prominent early credit came on Surfer Rosa, the 1988 debut by Pixies, followed by numerous others as the grunge scene flourished in the early 90s. He helped to define the raw sound of PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me in 1993, and that year had perhaps his best-known credit: Nirvana’s famously forbidding In Utero, the follow-up to Nevermind.
He became adored by musicians for his unpretentious approach, prioritising the intentions of each artist rather than bringing in a particular production flavour. He also favoured analogue techniques, brusquely announcing “fuck digital” on the sleevenotes to Songs About Fucking.
His success allowed him to set up Electrical Audio in 1995, and he appeared in the credits for numerous other landmark acts in American indie that went way beyond the noisy work he was generally known for: Joanna Newsom, Low, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and others. British artists such as Manic Street Preachers, Mogwai and Jarvis Cocker also sought his expertise. He was also a celebrated poker player.
Among those paying tribute to Albini were the actor Elijah Wood, who said his death was “a heartbreaking loss of a legend”.
Albini is survived by his wife, the film-maker Heather Whinna.