Recorded By Steve Albini

Celebrating Steve Albini, 22nd July 1962 to 7th May 2024.

I was hours behind everyone with the unwelcome news, only chancing upon it because I checked my phone just before I put my head down for the night. There was no doubt waking up this morning that I'd focus today's post on the merest hint of Steve's genius. He didn't like to be labelled as a producer, frequently credited as 'recorded by' but he was obviously so, so much more, which is clear from the transformative effect his presence in the studio has had on the hundreds of artists he has worked with. 

 

There are already many thousands of words out there paying tribute to his hugely important and influential career, his kindness and generosity, side-by-side with a no-bullshit attitude and a lifetime dedicated to music and being authentic, an overused term but you'll know what I mean when applied to Steve Albini.

 

Steve was only 61. Gone far too soon.

 

The limited time I've had to pull this selection together (I'm already at risk of being late for work but priorities, right?) means that there's so much more that I could say yet can't include in today's post. However, pop over to The Vinyl Villain as JC pulled a late shift last night to hold the presses and post an incredible Imaginary Compilation Album with superlative sleeve notes. I'm expecting more tributes to follow in this corner of the blogosphere, given how much Steve Albini has populated our respective record collections these past four decades.

At first, I was tempted to exclude all of the more obvious choices of artists, and whilst I managed to drop Nirvana, in all conscience I couldn't ignore The Wedding Present, PJ Harvey or Pixies, whose Surfer Rosa was the first time I'd heard an album recorded by Steve Albini.

I've also tried to include some more unusual song selections and possibly one or two artists that you may not have realised Steve worked with, such as Nina Nastasia and Anni Rossi. 

Cosmia by Joanna Newsom is a bit of a cheat: Steve 'just' recorded the vocals and harp, the other constituent parts worked on by Van Dyke Parks, Jim O'Rourke and Joanna; however, it sits beautifully between Low and Songs: Ohia and couldn't be left out.

 

The selection ends, as it probably should, with a song from PJ Harvey's 1993 album Rid Of Me. Man-Size was - and remains - a hugely important song, but the decision to include two versions on the album was a bold one. I've opted for Man-Size Sextet here as it demonstrated a different side to Polly's and Steve's work that I'd been familiar with up to that point.

 

Rest (and record) in power, Steve, you've left us with so much to treasure.

 

1) We Are The Snare: Spare Snare (2018)

2) Santa Ana Winds: The Wedding Present (2008)

3) Everything You Say Will Destroy You: The Auteurs (1996)

4) Bang On: The Breeders (2008)

5) Where Is My Mind?: Pixies (1988)

6) Quick, Before It Melts: Cinerama (2002)

7) Weight Of Water: Low (1999)

8) Cosmia: Joanna Newsom (2006)

9) Farewell Transmission: Songs: Ohia (2003)

10) Fuckingsong: Jarvis Cocker (2009)

11) Our Day Trip: Nina Nastasia (2006)

12) Leave Me Alone So I Can Rock Again: The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (1999)

13) Ecology: Anni Rossi (2009)

14) Man-Size Sextet: PJ Harvey (1993)

1988: Surfer Rosa: 5

1993: Rid Of Me: 14

1996: After Murder Park: 3

1999: Acme-Plus: 12 

1999: Secret Name: 7

2002: Quick, Before It Melts EP: 6 

2003: The Magnolia Electric Co: 9 

2006: On Leaving: 11

2006: Ys: 8

2008: El Rey: 2

2008: Mountain Battles: 4

2009: Further Complications: 10

2009: Rockwell: 13

2018: 'Sounds' Recorded By Steve Albini: 1

Recorded By Steve Albini (50:52) (KF) (Mega)

Better Late Than Never

Spare Snare have been releasing music (independently) since 1992. Were it not for a few well-timed and inspiring posts in the blogosphere in 2022, they may have continued to fly under my radar. Thirty years late, but a helluva back catalogue to dive back into.

 

Super Slinky is one of the tracks that's been highlighted, once via the original version from 1995's debut album Live At Home and again via the 2018 re-recording with Steve Albini on the Sounds album. Both are pretty special, as is the live version which heads up this post, from the Homegame Festival in Anstruther, Fife on 12th March 2010.

Spare Snare's extensive back catalogue is available on Bandcamp, with some ridiculously reasonable prices for digital and CD formats - both of the aforementioned albums are on sale for £3.00 and £5.00 respectively. Some releases also have vinyl and cassette formats remaining.

 

Spare Snare started recording a new album in October 2022, Steve Albini back in the studio, for a release in Spring 2023. I'm hoping that a tour will be forthcoming, with some dates in my neck of the woods. I'd love to see them live in concert.

 

Monkey Shines Again

Side 2 of a mixtape, originally compiled 2nd September 1990. I posted Side 1 in August last year and I hadn't intended to leave it quite so long to follow up with Side 2. However, after a weekend of being shaken, rattled and rolled by Storm Eunice (Saturday and Sunday were far worse than Friday) and the prospect of Storm Frederick landing overnight, then it's time to fight back with Boston's finest...and no, of course I don't mean Boston the band.

Similar to yesterday's spotlight on The Sugarcubes, at the time this C90 was compiled, Pixies still had one more album to go, with 1991's Trompe Le Monde, before they split. Unlike The Sugarcubes, Pixies reconvened as a regular live concern and, twenty three years after that last album, released a new one, 2014's Indie Cindy. 

 

Unfortunately, by the time of the studio recordings, Kim Deal had left the band and, whilst good, 21st Century Pixies are a different proposition to the original version that emerged in the late 1980s. 

So here then is a second slab of sonic perfection, drawn from Come On Pilgrim (1987), Surfer Rosa (1988), Doolittle (1989) and Bossanova (1990), plus an excellent track from 1989's Monkey Gone To Heaven EP. All tracks are the album versions, unless stated. If I'd been more prescient all those years ago, I may have included Stormy Weather...

As Black Francis screams in Manta Ray, awwllllll-right!

 

1) I've Been Tired (1987)

2) Blown Away (1990)

3) Velouria (1990)

4) Wave Of Mutilation (1989)

5) Break My Body (1988)

6) Levitate Me (1987)

7) Manta Ray (Single Version) (1989)

8) Is She Weird (1990)

9) Monkey Gone To Heaven (1989)

10) Where Is My Mind? (1988)

11) Mr. Grieves (1989)

12) The Happening (1990)

13) Ana (1990)

14) I Bleed (1989)

15) Crackity Jones (1989)

16) Isla De Encanta (1987)

17) Broken Face (1988)

18) Dead (1989)

 

Side Two (46:12)

Side One here
 

Monkey Shines

Side 1 of a mixtape, originally recorded 2nd September 1990. Enough downtempo sounds for this week, time for some noise. This was compiled as a batch of hastily recorded essential mixtapes to accompany me on a year in Australia, 19 years old, travelling solo for the first time. Bossanova had come out a few weeks earlier and I had all of Pixies' albums and 12" singles up to Here Comes Your Man at that point. I had wanted to include the single version of River Euphrates but I couldn't fit it into the cassette's running time. For this recreation, I've had to swap the live version of In Heaven from the Gigantic / River Euphrates 12" for the original demo version as I haven't yet ripped the former. This brings back lots of happy memories, though I did discover yesterday that it's not the best soundtrack for a commute to a work meeting. After three quarters of an hour of driving and 'singing' along with Black Francis' primal howl, I arrived at the meeting to find that I'd nearly lost my voice. "Your mouth's a mile away"? You ain't kidding.

 

1) Bone Machine (1988)

2) Tame (1989)

3) La La Love You (1989)

4) Cecilia Ann (1990)

5) Bailey's Walk (1989)

6) Caribou (1987)

7) Hang Wire (1990)

8) River Euphrates (Album Version) (1988)

9) Rock Music (1990)

10) Dancing The Manta Ray (1989)

11) Ed Is Dead (1987)

12) Cactus (1988)

13) Brick Is Red (1988)

14) Gigantic (Album Version) (1988)

15) Gouge Away (1989)

16) Allison (1990)

17) Something Against You (1988)

18) No. 13 Baby (1989)

19) In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song) ('The Purple Tape' Demo, 1987)

 

Side One (45:46)
 

The mixtape title was inspired by the 1989 single Monkey Gone To Heaven (it's on Side 2) and lifted directly from George A. Romero's 1988 movie adaptation of the 1983 psychological horror novel by MIchael Stewart. I haven't read the book and only saw the film once, which I think was possibly one time too many. The cassette cover is very loosely based on the Bossanova album sleeve, with a point knocked off for using 'the' in the band name on the sleeve's spine.