Steve Albini died suddenly yesterday at the age of 61. As reported by Pitchfork, the musician and producer was at his recording studio, Electrical Audio in Chicago, when he suffered a heart attack. A sadly premature death – just think that the release of his new album with Shellac, To All Trainsis scheduled for May 17th – which however caught Albini in the habitat that was most congenial to him.
Born to parents from Turin who immigrated to the USA, he took his first steps in the world of music in the 80s when in Chicago, where he moved to study, he approached the hardcore punk scene, later giving life to Big Black in which he played guitar and sang. The group released only two LPs – Atomizer And Songs About Fucking – before disbanding in 1987, but has become a cult band for the industrial genre. They also released a single titled The Duxwith Mussolini himself depicted on the cover in front of a tricolor: a clear punk provocation from an openly anti-fascist musician.
From the beginning Albini had dedicated himself to the activity of producer, but in a rather atypical way. Having an aversion to the logic of the music industry – his essay published in 1993 remains iconic, The Problem with Music, in which he explains with which techniques the majors enrich themselves by impoverishing musicians of revenues and the public of variety of choice – he has always preferred to define himself as a recording engineer, refusing, moreover, to take advantage of the royalties usually allocated to producers. «I don’t think we should pay a doctor more because a patient doesn’t die. I think the doctor should “work his ass off” for every patient. I don’t think I should be paid for someone else’s success »he stated in an interview with his typical sharp style. A posture that did not change even when Albini produced enormously successful records, above all In the Uterus by Nirvana (1993). It was Kurt Cobain who sought him out, impressed by his work for Surfer Rosa by the Pixies and Pod by the Breeders. Among the top artists with whom he worked, PJ Harvey, Robert Plant, Neurosis, Bush, Low, Uzeda, Zu and many others – Albini himself estimated that he took care of the sound of around 1500 albums, mostly of underground musicians.
HOW LONG concerns the music played, after the dissolution of Big Black he formed Rapeman, who had a short life, and then in ’92 Shellac with whom he moved towards math rock. Their latest album, Dude Incredible, dates back to 2014. In a week we will be able to hear the sad, but certainly powerful, swan song.
