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The Latest Breaking News from Steve Albini

The Guardian regrets to inform readers that shortly after this request was published it was announced that Steve Albini has died.As his band Shellac release their first album since 2014, the celebrated US producer and musician will take on your questions

The Guardian - UK

"He was mad, when he set it up… it shocked him how bad it sounded": Steve Albini has just given his most insightful interview on the recording gear behind Nirvana's In Utero and why Kurt Cobain's touring amp setup failed to impress in the studio

Amps, mics and the pedal on Heart-Shaped Box that nearly caused a rift between Cobain and Krist Novoselic – "He really thought Kurt was trying to sabotage the song"

MusicRadar

'As time has taught us, there was a lot more to Kurt Cobain’s guitar playing than the slacker attitude he’d like us to have believed': 5 Nirvana songs that celebrate Nirvana's legacy

'He was a phenomenal rhythm player, clearly had some lead playing ability, and also experimented sonically – with fascinating results'

MusicRadar

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If you're wondering how radio-friendly the new Shellac album will be, the first track is called World Series of Dick-Sucking and the closing track is called I Don't Fear Hell

To All Trains, the first Shellac album in 10 years, is coming soon, as is a UK tour from the trio

Metal Hammer

“He had an acoustic guitar and he started playing this little melody for the bridge… It felt magical – like classic Smashing Pumpkins”: Code Orange on their spellbinding Billy Corgan collaboration and how simplification brought honesty to their playing

Reba Meyers and Dom Landolina pull back the curtain and take us behind the making of their adventurous and aggressively iconoclastic new album, The Above – and explain why recording with Steve Albini isn’t like working with any other producer

Guitar World

Ben Frost on working with Steve Albini: "As a recording engineer, he’s the equivalent of a war photographer – he’s not composing images and dictating proportions, he’s documenting what’s occurring in a space"

On Scope Neglect, Ben Frost extends his guitar obsession by re-engineering our perception of metal music

MusicRadar

Steve Albini weighs in on amp modelling and effects pedals: "I know some old school guys are like, ‘Plug the guitar straight into the amp, and if you can’t get it done with that, you’re not a real musician,’ or whatever. That’s horses***"

He also names the young player who he believes uses pedals in an especially creative way

MusicRadar

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"I experimented with that technique because I saw everybody else doing it, but I just never got good results with it": Steve Albini explains why he decided to break from traditional speaker miking methods in the recording studio

"If the microphone is backed off more like 12 to 14 inches, then you get much more of an overall picture of the sound of the cabinet"

MusicRadar

Aaron Rash has taken his Nirvana gear journey to a whole new level: he's built the 'Frankenamp' Kurt Cobain used that's the final part in the In Utero tone puzzle

Nirvana's tech Earnie Bailey has helped the YouTuber reach the final destination of his quest

MusicRadar

Gavin Rossdale talks us through Bush's platinum hits: "These songs were not written with a view to any degree of success… I had toiled for many years and nothing had worked"

From unemployment in London to 20-million album sales and US stardom, the songwriter recalls a remarkable rise – "I was pretty rubbish at first, but I had a knack"

MusicRadar

Fleetwood Mac decided to go their own ways. How do bands know when to quit, and shouldn’t more do so?

After the death of Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks has called time. There is an art to timing it right – just look at the Beatles, says music writer Michael Hann

The Guardian - UK

Five Great Reads: Matildas meet their match, smartphone-free life, and the ‘jerkoff’ who produced Nirvana

Guardian Australia’s weekend wrap of essential reads from the past seven days, selected by Kris Swales

The Guardian - AU

"We kept the groupies and drug dealers away": Steve Albini on the making of In Utero, Nirvana's bleak, beautiful swansong

The unimaginable success of Nevermind made Nirvana the world's most reluctant and confused rock stars. Steve Albini looks back on what Kurt Cobain's band did next, and the birth of their dark masterpiece In Utero

Metal Hammer

The evolution of Steve Albini: ‘If the dumbest person is on your side, you’re on the wrong side’

The long read: Steve Albini was long synonymous with the indie underground, playing in revered bands and recording albums by the Pixies, PJ Harvey and Nirvana. He also often seemed determined to offend as many people as possible. What led him to reassess his past?

The Guardian - UK

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MusicRadar

"It sounds exactly like the record" – guitarist nails Kurt Cobain's Nirvana In Utero distorted tones with two pedals, a Fender amp and some insider information

Aaron Rash's two-year tone odyssey pays off

MusicRadar

Nirvana fan tries to recreate Steve Albini's aluminum Veleno guitar that Kurt Cobain used on In Utero

It's very ape, and very nice

Metal Hammer

A beginner's guide to Touch and Go Records

The story of Chicago's Touch and Go Records in five essential albums

Louder

“He overdosed and was saved by an adrenalin shot”: How Urge Overkill went from being Steve Albini’s pet project to year-long parties and accidentally re-enacting that famous scene from Pulp Fiction

Urge Overkill were just “a scrappy punk rock band that played too fast”: How did they up touring with Nirvana and jet-setting with Chrissie Hynde?

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Metal Hammer

Kurt Cobain showed up to Nirvana's In Utero sessions with a chunk of the guitar Steve Albini smashed at Big Black's final show

Steve Albini reveals that Nirvana's Kurt Cobain owned a special memento from Big Black's farewell performance in Seattle

MusicRadar

Steve Albini recalls the secrecy around the Nirvana In Utero sessions: "I had to do everything I could to keep it under wraps to make sure that we didn’t get overrun by fans and the added nonsense"

He also reveals a young Cobain had kept a piece of the guitar he saw Albini smash onstage at Big Black's farewell gig in 1987

Louder

How PJ Harvey’s raw, violent, vengeful masterpiece Rid Of Me inspired Nirvana and set hearts ablaze among a new generation of fearless female musicians

PJ Harvey’s savage, soul-baring second album Rid Of Me is 30 years old. Its howls of pain, rage and revenge now sound more vital than ever

Louder

Torture. Incest. Voyeurism. Why Pixies' Surfer Rosa is the weirdest and most influential alt. rock album of the '80s

Nirvana's Kurt Cobain admitted it, but pretty much every single alt. rock band of the past 35 years has 'borrowed' from Pixies 1988 masterpiece Surfer Rosa

Chicago Sun-Times

Chicago’s music scene history explored in NPR radio series

Host Raina Douris and her team spent a week in the city last October gathering the soundbites and recorded performances that make up much of the 13-part series.

The Guardian - UK

‘She was so casual about her genius’: musicians on Low’s Mimi Parker

Steve Albini, Robert Plant, Geoff Barrow and more pay tribute to the vocalist and drummer, who has died aged 55

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