Bringing the Noise: Remembering Steve Albini

Today marks the release of Shellac’s new record, To All Trains. Like most others, I haven’t listened to it, simply because Steve Albini, Bob Weston and Todd Trainer didn’t partake in the PR dance. A band opposed to gaining an advantage from their contemporaries, it was one of the many facets of the band’s against-the-grain ethos.

Not that there’s much to gain from the carcass that is the arts circa 2024, but led by Albini, the band put the culture before anything else, including themselves. Always a band marching to the beat of their own drum (or more specifically, Trainer’s), Shellac released music when they wanted to. They played when they wanted to. And that was that.

Last Tuesday, the world became a very different place when it was confirmed that Steve Albini had left us. He suffered a heart attack in his Chicago home. He was 61 years old.

Whether it was as a recording engineer or his endeavours as a singer/guitarist, many record collections in homes around the world would look cavernous had it not been for Albini. To the DIY community, his loss is as big as David Bowie’s.

Everything Changes: Rodan’s Rusty 30th anniversary

I mention Bowie because similar to Shellac’s To All Trains, the Thin White Duke released Blackstar the week before his passing. And while Bowie had the power to seemingly write his own eulogy, granted, Albini’s passing is much different, however, the two are loosely associated by the fact they changed the world in their own ways.

Born in Pasadena, California in 1962, Albini was raised in Missoula, Montana before moving to Chicago to study journalism at Northwestern University. Just by reading his various blog posts and interviews over the years confirmed that the whip smart Albini was a wordsmith from the highest echelons. Both in mind and mouth, he was as razor-sharp as the noise he dispensed during the ’80s as leader of Big Black – the metal on-bone offensive alongside Santiago Durango, Jeff Pezzati and later with Dave Riley who replaced Pezzati on bass.

Suffice to say, Albini’s involvement from Big Black through to Shellac and the plethora of artists he recorded in between have been a key source inspiration for many of the words that only adorn these pages, but countless others both in print and online. These publications simply wouldn’t exist in the same guise had it not been for the thread Albini had woven through the DIY patchwork.

His work on era-defining releases from Nirvana, PJ Harvey and Pixies is much talked about in wider circles, however it’s the records that form the pillars of the underground where Albini made the deepest mark. Again, just take one look at your record collection and see how bare it would be without his work in it.

From Slint’s Tweez and Dirty Three’s Ocean Songs to Oxbow’s Let Me Be A Woman and Serenade in Red, as well as the majority of Silkworm’s criminally underrated discography. Similarly, he helped shape Neurosis into version 2.0, from the lightening-speed punk of their earlier years to sludge-orientated long-form glory which led to Times in Grace, A Sun That Never Sets and The Eye of Every Storm.

While Albini chiselled away in the shadows, galvanising and becoming a part of the story for some bands, he also breathed new life into others. None better than what I consider his last defining statements in Sunn O)))’s Life Metal and later in 2018 with its companion, Pyroclasts. Albums that revealed a new dimension to the drone titans. This new energy, harnessed from behind the studio glass by Albini.

It’s not only the records he was involved with, but the opportunities he made through Electrical Audio studios. A space where other recorders and engineers have thrived in their own endeavours. Mainstays like Greg Norman and even those not directly involved with the studio such as Sanford Parker. Engineers who have left their own critical mark from the soundboards, with records from the likes of Josh Abrahams, Jim White & Marisa Anderson, Black Ox Orkestar, Pelican, FACS and so many more. Maybe these eventualities wouldn’t have been possible had it not been for the vision and tenacity of Albini, who maintained this space for outliers and purveyors to flourish.

It may sound trite, but in the world of aggressive capitalism and gentrification, how Electrical Audio (opened since 1997) maintained a presence in the face of this new world adversity whilst still holding firm on recording costs ($900 a day in Albini’s case), is nothing short of a miracle. It’s yet another example of Albini’s DIY spirit, and that’s not to mention all the off-the-books recording sessions he provided over the years. (Anyone who has watched the Silkworm documentary will realise that this was probably the tip of the iceberg.)

There has been a lot said of Albini’s antics during his ‘edgelord’ days in Big Black, writing for Forced Exposure, and the following years when he formed Rapeman (the name taken from the Japanese black comedy manga series). Through song, in-between song patter and the written word, at times Albini’s themes were fictitious, grotesque horror stories that grew from the seeds of reality. Imagery that seemed more aligned to the Butthole Surfers had their travelling carnival of absurdity not been impaired by psychedelics and everything else.

It has been the source of debate over the years, and that discourse has amplified over the past week. People will have their own opinions, but to me, it was Albini trying to expose the world’s dark underbelly by screaming directly into it. Through this torrent of scorn in a bid to illuminate life’s sinister realities, however humourous and/or satirical it was meant to be, he simply cut across the threshold.

Albini has rightfully owned these past indiscretions, and the way he’s acknowledged these missteps is something that I actually respect him for the most. Like the endless hours he spent toiling away from behind the soundboards, he put the work in to understand, not only by acknowledging his mistakes, but becoming a better person on the back of them.

Everyone fucks up, and while there are certain degrees of wrongdoing, despite those claiming otherwise from atop of their moral high ground, that’s life. It doesn’t come with a user’s guide. All of us have our own life stains, and no amount of bleach will get rid of them. It’s how you react and grow from your mistakes, and the way Albini did was admirable, and perhaps something all of us can learn from.

Without knowing the man, from the outside, he seemed a fiercely compassionate, giving person who cared militantly for his own creative community as well others. A crusader. The letter he wrote to New York label, Temporary Residence, sums up what I imagined him to have been like. It read:

“Your label and the commitment to your friends it embodies remains an inspiration. Please never stop.”

While we can talk about the numerous high-watermarks he was involved in from both sides of the studio glass (there’s probably another in wait with To All Trains). While we could talk about his successes in the World Series of Poker, it was Steve Albini the human being that, to me, was his greatest legacy. He brought the noise in many ways, and while some of it was misguided, through those mistakes, he learnt and grew to be the sort of person many would aspire to be.

The world will be a lesser place without Steve Albini in it, and while those same record collections may become jaundiced and perhaps even frozen in time, it begs the question: will there ever be someone more influential in underground music culture? Probably not.

Rest In Peace, Steve Albini.