STEVE ALBINI

what's a pedantic sound?

Fussy and unfuzzy.

one really fucking annoying thing about this is did it occur to anyone that Rid of Me sounds like PJ Harvey wanted it to sound?

Exactly. Like he's not without his issues and there are people who stick him too high on that ultimate alternative producer pedestal but his key thing has always been "find the best way to make it sound like the artist wants it to sound"

I think it is safe to assume EC would not be a fan of Tweez

i'd say his sound is very clear and specific more than pedantic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMttXqBl2uQ

from 18.57 until the end of this song is some of the most glorious production i have ever heard

just listen to this pedantic shit, that typical albini sound

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l_5nW0SUNw

well that^ is very clear, very defined, but i wouldn't call that pedantic, it sounds great

perhaps musicians appreciate crisp recording, who knows

you don't go to albini if you don't want the sound to be crisply conveyed

2xpost Well, that for sure sounds pretty band in a room, which was probably the intent. Albini's done all sorts of stuff, to his (literal) credit, but I think his claim that he only does what the artist wants is a little misleading, since there is a pretty identifiable Albini sound/approach on a lot of his records. Now, it's very possible, if not likely, that a lot of the acts he works with go to him *for* that sound, but I do wonder what it would be like if someone went to him and said "I want to make a record that sounds like Rumours," or whatever. Or, say, an extreme or proggy metal band that doesn't have a lot of room for his drum sound. He's come close to both kinds of bands before, I guess.

I *think* he's worked with hip-hip, or jazz, acts before, but I don't know who off the top of my head. He'd probably make a great jazz producer.

lol i wonder if part of the issue i will sometimes have with albini is that the rooms he records the artists in are .. bad rooms? like their sonic character might be interesting but possibly not the greatest match for the artist. i love the idea of recording a performance in a room but the room shouldn't have what sounds like hard glossy walls if it's a country song imo?

He did an album for Mats Gustafsson's band The Thing. It's good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezvZ1_J8aR8

He takes pride in his purportedly perfectly designed studio, doesn't he?

you don't go to albini if you don't want the sound to be crisply conveyed

Which, yeah, implies that he does have an identifiable sound and approach, and it's more than just him trying to capture what it is that the artist wants, right?

well that^ is very clear, very defined, but i wouldn't call that pedantic, it sounds great

perhaps musicians appreciate crisp recording, who knows

― imago, Monday, November 30, 2020 2:41 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

i know i was joking haha like if you played that for someone who didn't know fulks and said who produced this they'd guess thousand times before they said albini

he's actually more similar to an old 60s era studio pro, do a weird psychedelic band one day, record a pop song the next, set it up and go

that room matches the artist much better imo! xp to the gustaffson (sp?) youtube

He did a record with Child Bite who are very metal-y (in this incarnation at least)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm3o0DnQ9Xk

xpost Yeah, that Thing jazz album shreds.

Albini is definitely a tradesman at heart, I just think he's so much more than a "my job is to place the right mics in the right place and capture the band's vision" sort of guy. But again, a lot of his projects could be pretty self-selecting, since it's not like some pop star is going to go with Albini. Was it Nine Inch Nails that went to him just to sample/capture a bunch of drum sounds or something? That seems like a great use of his approach.

the room i long to have a glimpse of - the ultimate room - is the room they recorded exile on main st in. it sounds like the most amazing room you could possibly hang out in imo.

the The Thing thing sounds great but cmon it's basically some noise-rock/doom Zu thing, not jazz haha

Another point of comparison, does anyone think his version of Cheap Trick's "In Color" sounds better than the original? I guess there are a lot of factors.

gonna check out more child bite - good stuff and great name too

Albini is definitely a tradesman at heart, I just think he's so much more than a "my job is to place the right mics in the right place and capture the band's vision" sort of guy. But again, a lot of his projects could be pretty self-selecting, since it's not like some pop star is going to go with Albini. Was it Nine Inch Nails that went to him just to sample/capture a bunch of drum sounds or something? That seems like a great use of his approach.

I interviewed Albini in '09, and I'm pretty sure I've posted links or quotes upthread, but what he said then has a lot of relevance to this discussion:

I took a two-year engineering course, finishing in ’06, and it struck me that the guy I did my in-studio work with was an old-school guy who’d been around since the ’70s, and he still had the mindset of a time when producing and engineering was an aristocracy of sorts. As a freelance writer I've been hustling for work my entire career, gig by gig, but he had the attitude that bands coming to the studio were supplicants in a way. Do you feel that’s a mindset that’s dying out?
Well, yeah, to be honest the sort of elite position of being a recording engineer, working in a studio, sort of evaporated a long time ago. The people that ran studios tried to persist with that mentality for a while, until they realized that it wasn’t in their business interests to alienate their clientele, and now they tend to be more cooperative. But I come from the opposite end of the spectrum. I started as a musician, a guy in a band, and whenever I or my friends would go into a studio to work with these professional engineers, we were always treated in a sort of a dismissive fashion, as though we didn’t really know what we were doing. And that inspired the idea in me that an engineer should be subservient to the bands that he’s recording. That is, he should be working to their agenda, rather than trying to fit them into his mental image of how a band should behave. The analogy that I can make is if you go to the barber to get your hair cut, you should be able to tell the barber how you want your hair cut. Of course, the barber is the professional and he’s doing the cutting, but he should be doing it to suit you. And when a band comes in the studio, I think of them in precisely the same light. They should tell me how they want their record to come out. I have to do the technical execution, of course, but it should be to serve their image of themselves and their perception of what their record should be.

Do you ever have to talk bands out of making their record sound like your back catalog, or anything like that?
The thing is, if you have an honest conversation with a band before you get too far into making a record, you can discern what it is about – if there are records that they’re emulating, and I’m using that in the Greek sense of being inspired by something but still trying to surpass it in some way – you can discern what aspects of those records they like, and which aspects they think are applicable to their music. So you can by doing a little forensic investigation on their music and an honest conversation, you can usually figure out what they’re actually asking for when they ask to sound like the Jesus Lizard or Nirvana or whatever. And it’s normally something quantifiable.

Have you ever recorded anything that you wouldn’t describe as falling under the umbrella of rock music?
Oh, sure, all the time.

How does your approach translate to non-rock music, like a small jazz group?
Basically the same. Essentially anyone, any band or any performance ensemble that has as the focus of its aesthetic the performance of the music rather than let’s say an intellectual construction of the music after the fact, I’m quite comfortable working with. And I don’t really care what the performance is, whether it’s improvisational music, electronic music, rock music, acoustic music, it doesn’t matter. As long as the heartbeat of the music is a live performance, I can do fine with it.

yes, and i would trust he's entirely sincere there, but i do think bands come to him expecting a certain quality of sound

the room i long to have a glimpse of - the ultimate room - is the room they recorded exile on main st in. it sounds like the most amazing room you could possibly hang out in imo.

Except for maybe the swastikas that were allegedly carved/formed into the air vent registers, yeah.

you'd choose a certain barber wouldn't you

my aesthetic complaints about albini are definitely in large part a post hoc rationalisation of a strong personal dislike

re: jazz and hip hop, idk who he’s worked with, but I’ve seen him in action on the electrical audio forums talking shit about ornette coleman, calling him a charlatan and his music bullshit, and dismissing jazz musicianship in general as hackwork in ways that made it clear he doesn’t have a clue what it is or how it works. I’ve seen him dismiss hip hop as beyond contempt. he is regularly gross about women and music made by or deemed to be for them. this alternative personality he cultivates in interviews as a thoughtful open minded lefty feminist dude, whose approach to music is purely technical, is transparent but it seems to work

you can say this is all irrelevant if the music is good. but I’m sick of him being held up as a hero by people who would cancel anyone else for a small amount of the shit he’s said and done over the years

you can say this is all irrelevant if the music is good. but I’m sick of him being held up as a hero by people who would cancel anyone else for a small amount of the shit he’s said and done over the years

― Left, Monday, November 30, 2020 3:04 PM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

we're not talking about his music though, or do people who record with him have to be cancelled too?

I always think about all the hundreds of bands he records who are coming to chicago and asking him to do stuff that 20 engineers in their own hometowns could do, but are coming to him bc they want to have a record recorded by the famous guy. Which is not his fault of course, but still idk, its hard for me to take his "i'm just a regular ol Workin Jumpsuit Guy" thing straight when he obviously knows that a huge percentage of his job is just to have the name Steve Albini.

asking him to do stuff that 20 engineers in their own hometowns could do

citation fucking required

ok how many dozens of clips would you like me to embed of random albini-produced flat-sounding punk bands over the last 20 years that sound like they could have been recorded anywhere by anyone

rather than that, post something produced by anyone else that sounds like albini

xxxp I like some artists and albums he’s been involved with. idk i’d just like to see him being called out more and praised less bc there’s a wealth of material for the former

I love the idea of Rid of Me opening with this Leno intro, from the performance that won over Costello:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBZoL8wpZzU

I always think about all the hundreds of bands he records who are coming to chicago and asking him to do stuff that 20 engineers in their own hometowns could do, but are coming to him bc they want to have a record recorded by the famous guy. Which is not his fault of course, but still idk, its hard for me to take his "i'm just a regular ol Workin Jumpsuit Guy" thing straight when he obviously knows that a huge percentage of his job is just to have the name Steve Albini.

― turn the jawhatthefuckever on (One Eye Open), Monday, November 30, 2020 3:20 PM (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this from the interview seems to acknowledge that imo:

"So you can by doing a little forensic investigation on their music and an honest conversation, you can usually figure out what they’re actually asking for when they ask to sound like the Jesus Lizard or Nirvana or whatever. And it’s normally something quantifiable."

the real takeaway here: pj harvey is the greatest.

otm

rather than that, post something produced by anyone else that sounds like albini

This is a really good question! The first thing that pops to mind is, I dunno, Led Zeppelin or something, but those albums sound so much better than his, even 50 years later. Then again, those albums sound better than almost anyone's albums, too.

rather than that, post something produced by anyone else that sounds like albini

close but the guitars aren't quite there imo

I always thought Jawbreaker's Bivouac sounded more stereotypically "albini-sound" (big thundering drums, loud guitars, low vocals) than 24-hour (and also that 24-hour sounded awful),
but the official engineer for that record is Albini's cat.

post something produced by anyone else that sounds like albini

Tim Mac who did a lot of Amphetamine Reptile stuff like Cows, Halo of Flies, Janitor Joe, Babes in Toyland was similar to the classic Albini Jesus Lizard zone but not nearly as good

close but the guitars aren't quite there imo

That is an excellent example of a precursor to the Albini drum sound and close enough for me on all other fronts.

Technical
Ben Fenner – engineer

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/benfenner

quite the cv

Just looked him up — he worked with Bowie on Outside, did a bunch of things with Steve Hackett...and was an (the?) engineer on Elvis Costello’s All This Useless Beauty. It’s all a rich tapestry.

Not very Albini-esque artists necessarily! But I found an interview where he talks about the need for clarity in sound so there's something shared there

in Spin mag in 1986, the mag's first piece re: Big Black, which was by John Leland, contained a jeremiad from SA re: "horrible beatbox rap." it may not evince racism qua racism, but Albini very clearly has a view of music in which anything straying from punk/hardcore/amerindie practices is pandering, false crap…it was very commonplace for me to encounter attitudes in the albini-adjacent Louisville scene that any african american popular music was false show biz shit antithetical to true punk-rock purism…

@ imago, I LOVE that song you posted-- that, to me, is Albini's production in its best context

I generally think Albini is "the best person for the job" for only about 20% of the albums he's worked on. Nina Nastasia is, to my mind, not in that 20%, not that it's bad, but I don't think it's the right union. PJ Harvey might not be, either, but I'm really glad they made that one record together (and am glad they haven't worked together again). He's "the best" for Jesus Lizard and Neurosis and Cheer Accident, no question. On the Taylor Swift thread, somebody was theorizing about a her recording with Albini and I cannot imagine that'd result in anything positive.