What's your favorite Steve Albini Record?

Steve Albini

His ethical principles to recording should be taught and handed down to all of these DIY'er's trying to be Engineers.

Now - I am not saying you shouldn't follow your dream, use your DAW and learn.

IMO, of course, this man does his job correctly. He sets up his mics, engineered his rooms to sound certain ways to compliment those mic's/vice versa.

I'm not in love with the guy, but his technique and ear for originality is top notch.

What's your favorite Steve Albini Engineered - and/or Recorded (Big Black,. Shellac, etc)?

 

Yeah, he's great in what he's doing.
Love Shellac, especially the drum sound he captures on their recordings.

 

Pod by The Breeders. The sound of that record is incredible. Loved it for 29 years.

 

PJ Harvey's Rid Of Me! A late but neat discovery!!

 

"SET ME ON FIRE!.... KEROSENE!"

 

Divers by Joanna Newsom.

I must admit that the thought does occasionally begin to speculate about the possibility of crossing my mind that just maybe he could perhaps use a tiny bit more bass....

 

Big Black -Atomizer.

 

He's recording my band next summer. He is a gear geek, and loves analog gear. 900/day

 

an example of Steve's mixes. VS loudness wars even today.

 

Probably the stuff he did for Jesus Lizard.

 

Cheap Trick- In color 1998

 

The Wedding Present- Seamonsters

 

Atomizer, Rid of Me, Walking into Clarksdale.

Pretty interesting interview (and series) if you enjoy a lil bit of the ol' tech razzle dazzle:

 

Pigface - Gub
Murder Inc. - Murder Inc.
Shellac - At Action Park

 

YES. Need this to creep up from the vaults and to get an all-analog vinyl reissue.

 

Rid of Me

 

Totally!

 

That basically says it all.

Congrats on working with him, how exciting. Was a huge Big Black fan back in the day...

Some of my faves from him include the usual suspects:

- Breeders Pod (probably the best sounding of anything he did that I am aware of)
- Pixies Surfer Rosa
- Nirvana In Utero
- Pretty much any Shellac LP but in particular Dude Incredible

It has been said many times, but some of the drum sounds he was able to capture were truly amazing.

 

The Wedding Present - Seamonsters

 

Two Nuns and a Pack Mule

 

Surfer Rosa

 

Rid of Me here too.

 

His work on the Mono albums was immense

 

I have a lot of favorites he has worked on, some mentioned above, but one of the biggest for me is Nina Nastasia with her run of amazing records, love them all, Dogs/The Blackened Air/Run to Ruin/On Leaving/You Follow Me. But I listen to The Blackened Air all the time, so that's the one, beautiful record by any measure, songwriting, musicianship, vocals, recording, mastering, just nearly perfect. It's also a beautiful all-analog recording, real work of love, all of her records sound great. The Blackened Air has kind of a smokey, folky, alt-country leaning sound at times, with lots of shimmering strings adding to the odd tales and metaphors. Recorded live in the studio, all the musicians playing together at the same time, this is the one I come back to over and over, one of my all-time favorites. As Steve Albini said, "Some records are made in the studio, and live or die based on the techniques and equipment used there. Others are made in the life outside the studio and only require a studio and recording to make them permanent -- Nina's records are of this (second) type."

 

Oh and a surprising one: Dionysos's Western Sous La Neige. At the time I was really happy to hear they were going to work with him but didn't know what to expect. The result is great!!!