Director and sound engineer Steve Albini, known for his collaborations with Nirvana, Pixies and PJ Harvey, died Tuesday of a heart attack at his Chicago studio, reports the magazine Pitchfork.
Little known as a musician outside of the insider circuits, Steve Albini made a name for himself as a sound engineer from the end of the 1980s. He was at the helm of the Pixies’ first album (Surfer Rosa1988), a group which would exert a decisive influence on Nirvana, of which Albini produced the third and final studio album, In utero.
During the following decade, he worked with a number of important artists in the English and American underground rock, recording or producing records by PJ Harvey, The Breeders, Wedding Present, Jesus Lizard, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and many others.
Coming from the punk movement, he always retained its values and notably refused to receive royalties from the sales of albums he made.
Steve Albini is associated with a raw rock sound and the alternative rock music scene. However, he also worked with icons like Robert Plant and Jimmy Page (on Walking into Clarkdale, 1997) and metal bands like Neurosis. His latest project cited on the reference site allmusic.com is the album by a Scandinavian avant-garde jazz group called Fire!.
Rock icon behind the console, Steve Albini, born in California in 1962, also led a more confidential career as a musician. He was part of several groups, including the punk groups Big Black and noise Shellac. Electrical Audio, the recording studio where he died, had been based in Chicago since 1997.