Updated May 9, 7:50 a.m., to include additional artist reactions
Steve Albini, esteemed record producer, audio engineer, musician and music journalist, has died at the age of 61 of an apparent heart attack, reported by Pitchfork after receiving word from Albini’s recording studio in Chicago. Albini’s many credits include his work on iconic albums like Pixies’ Surfer Rosa, The Wedding Present’s Seamonsters, PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me, and Nirvana’s In Utero — the latter three of which Albini recorded at Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. Albini also worked with Minnesota band Low, contributing to 1999's Secret Name and on 2001's Things We Lost in the Fire.

Although Albini disliked the title “record producer” (preferring to be credited as recording engineer), he was “one of the most iconic, I think, producers of our era,” The Current’s Mac Wilson says. “Noted for his sense of integrity, he believed in everything that he did — [he] sometimes rubbed people however he felt like they needed to be rubbed in whatever way in the service of the integrity that he had, for any given project that he had.”

Born in Pasadena, California, Albini grew up in Montana and attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., earning a degree in journalism, and perhaps more importantly, becoming part of the Chicago music scene through Big Black, the band he formed while still a student at Northwestern.

In 1981, Albini engineered his first album while co-managing the Ruthless Records label with Jon Babbin and John Kedzy. On the Ruthless imprint were a number of Chicago punk bands like Urge Overkill, the Effigies and Naked Raygun, as well as Minneapolis punk band Rifle Sport. Albini eventually took over management himself before handing the label over to the members of Rifle Sport.

Albini is the founder of Electrical Audio Recording in Chicago, which he opened in 1995. One of Albini’s interns at Electrical Audio was Alicia Bognanno, now frontperson of the band Bully and an accomplished engineer and producer in her own right. “Never in my life have I been more welcomed and looked out for the way that I was during my time at Electrical Audio,” Bognanno wrote on Instagram. “The ethics behind the way that studio operates are so powerfully humanizing in a way that is completely foreign to this industry. I owe my career to Steve and that studio. Thank you for cultivating a space in which I genuinely felt respected, safe and comfortable enough to ask questions and grow.”

Certainly a towering icon in the Chicago music scene, Albini is revered in Minnesota as well given his work at Pachyderm in Cannon Falls and his work with Duluth’s Low. The lineup of Albini’s band Shellac includes Minneapolis drummer Todd Trainer, and Albini also engineered Luv 713 for Flour in 1990, and Empire Inward by STNNNG in 2013.

Responding to news of Albini’s passing, representatives from Pachyderm Recording Studios posted on Instagram: “This is a sad day. The industry has lost a legend. Steve Albini showed us how to make good music with integrity, in the most punk way ever. Some of the biggest records done at Pachyderm were produced by Steve: In Utero, Rid of Me. His death leaves a big hole in the music industry. We will keep his spirit going the best we can.”

Asked by Kerrang magazine in 2021 if he maintained positive memories about the alternative music scene of the 1980s and 90s, Albini replied, “I do, actually. I think everyone looks back fondly on the period where they formed their identity, and that’s definitely when I developed my notion of self. But I also think that was a genuinely unique and productive period for music. A lot of amazing music was made then by people I consider friends and peers … Every town had its own group of weirdos, and every group of weirdos was different, and that was the most invigorating thing to me.”

Reed Fischer, Bill DeVille and MPR News’ Nicole Johnson also contributed to this report.

This is a developing story. Updates may be posted later here at thecurrent.org and on mprnews.org.