Steve Albini, the noise rock pioneer with Big Black and Shellac who also helped engineer some of the greatest alternative rock albums of all time — Nirvana’s In Utero and Pixies’ Surfer Rosa among them — has died at the age of 61.⠀
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Staff at Albini’s Electrical Audio Recording confirmed to Rolling Stone that Albini died Tuesday night, though no other details were provided.⠀
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Albini’s death comes just a week after his acclaimed noise rock project Shellac was set to release To All Trains, their first new album in over a decade.⠀
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The California-born, Montana-raised Albini played in Missoula punk bands as a teenager before moving to Chicago in the late Seventies to attend Northwestern University, where he majored in journalism and wrote for local music zines. On the side, Albini formed his own solo music project that he dubbed Big Black, releasing the EP Lungs in 1981.⠀
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After filling out Big Black with guitarist Santiago Durango and bassist Jeff Pezzati — both of the beloved Chicago punk act Naked Raygun — with a Roland TR-606 as the drummer, the band released a series of EPs that showcased Big Black’s trademark sound: Suffocating, abrasive guitars, played slower than punk rock but no less intense.⠀
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In the early Nineties, Albini continued to produce and engineer albums at a prolific pace, recording with bands like the Jesus Lizard, Tad, Failure and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. In 1993, Albini was recruited to work on a pair of high-profile, major label LPs: PJ Harvey’s sophomore album Rid of Me, and Nirvana’s much-anticipated follow-up to Nevermind, In Utero.
