Legendary Sonic Youth band member Thurston Moore has taken to social media to pay tribute to the late musician and engineer Steve Albini who passed away on May 8 due to a heart attack. He described Albini as “a person of passion and contradiction” and praised him for his ability to “articulate, from a surprisingly young age, with intelligent and intellectual passion, reasons not to set foot in the manipulative cogs of major label indignity,” adding: “While wholly serious in his analysis he also seemed to be able to write it all off at the end of the day as being alive in an absurd universe.”
Moore recalled the day he first heard of Albini when meeting with Byron Coley and Jimmy Johnson from Forced Exposure in NYC where they were interviewing Sonic Youth for their zine. He remembered their fascination with Albini, who “immediately proved himself to be as vociferous and cutting and acerbic and hilarious as they were.” The meeting sparked a long-lasting camaraderie between the pair, and other self-made wildly-opinionated minds, Gerard Cosloy, Lydia Lunch et al, although there were personal ups-and-downs throughout the decades.
Moore also referenced Albini’s disagreement with Sonic Youth for signing with major label Geffen in 1990 saying: “He would become utterly disenchanted at SY for signing on with Geffen in 1990 considering it an abandonment of principle.” He described Albini as an artist, a musician, a recording engineer, a high functioning decoder allowing for a plethora of poker winnings and pool table mastery.”
Several musicians have shared their own tributes, including Jarvis Cocker, PJ Harvey, and Dave Grohl. Albini who worked with an array of notable and well-respected artists throughout his career, from Nirvana to the Breeders, and is best known for his influential work in the engineering and production of alternative rock records. Moore summed up Albini’s impact, writing: “A huge, huge light, a stick of dynamite in shredded low-top sneakers, skintight ripped dungarees, and a torn Rudimentary Peni t-shirt in our micro-community of marginalized music has moved on. Yesterday’s news was a shock, heartbreaking, we will truly miss him here.”
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