It's rare I step out of writing about my little world and reference actual news but I'm going to do it this week as I was shocked and saddened to hear of the death of record producer/audio engineer/musician Steve Albini.
Albini's work with two of my favourite bands, Pixies and the Wedding Present helped to form and reinforce my musical tastes. Some albums by the groups that he worked with remain among my favourites. (Torino by Cinerama also deserves a shout and as no one else has mentioned Just Fred by Fred Schneider I will!)
The Wedding Present were already very good when they went to to work with Albini. He absolutely made them better. I think he did it by making them more.
They were already the Wedding Present, he just found a way to make them more Wedding Present. Brassneck had originally appeared on the excellent 1989 album Bizarro. The Albini-influenced version was released as a single the following year and reached number 24.
I've chosen that this week as it's a moment in time when a band with two albums under their belt, with the help of a talented and committed collaborator in the shape of Steve Albini, worked out where to go next. And I was very much on board.
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