According to the staff of Electrical Audio, the recording studio he owned, Steve Albini died this Wednesday morning of a heart attack.
The American artistic producer, sound engineer and musician was 61 years old, and will be remembered for his work on iconic albums of the ’90s such as In Utero from Nirvana, Pink Surfer of Pixies and Rid of Me by PJ Harvey, among others.
A polemicist and antagonistic profile of the multinationals, Steve Albini was also at the consoles during the recording of a great hardcore and punk album, Song Argentos; namely: The Art(e) of The Romance (1999), from the now dissolved Fun People.
In all cases, he manufactured a harsh, organic and powerful sound, almost without artifice.
As a musician, meanwhile, he was a member of the bands Big Black, Rapeman, Flour and Shellac. With the latter he came to Argentina several times.
A few months ago, Steve Albini had participated in the Mexican International Music Fair (FIM), where he pointed out that digital resources are not so important in a recording, but rather that the band connects with its audience.
“The sound is not important but the connection with that sound. In music it is the same, it can be any artist that means something to you, because you recognize it and have a connection that you recreate when you listen to it, that is worth much more than the answer to the frequency and the technical issues. In that sense, digital music is not so important,” she reinforced in the context of a master class.
In another order, he accepted that streaming platforms have favored the dissemination of genres and artists that in another era would have been difficult to know.
“I remain optimistic, there have been some advances in streaming, although also rules that have not been adequate, they have made some exclusive rules, but now you can also search for an artist or put up your YouTube channel and go from having 10 views to 1 million from one day to the next,” observed the producer of more than 1,500 albums, among which titles by The Breeders, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mogwai, Low, Joanna Newsom, Manic Street Preachers, Black Midi, Nina Nastasia and Cat’s Eyes and Jarvis Cocker, among others.
In this appointment, Albini had assured that his secret is to make the bands work comfortably, and with the same rhythm and sensations that they would have playing live, without interfering too much.
And then he specified that this formula worked when he worked with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant in Walking into Clarksdale (1998): “We made four songs in just four days and then we continued for six months making the others in a more relaxed process.”
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