“He’s better with me solo. He was more open to being adventurous.” Kim Deal on working again with former Pixies/Breeder engineer Steve Albini, and why his death hit so hard
Kim Deal has spoken out about her sadness at the passing of her friend Steve Albini, Shellac‘s frontman and world-renowned recording engineer, who worked with her during her time with Pixies, and went on to record several Breeders albums and her forthcoming solo record, Nobody Loves You More.
The famously-honest Albini wasn’t always hugely complimentary about the artists that he worked with, and after recording Pixies’ 1998 album Surfer Rosa, a record long considered one of the most influential and essential in the US indie-rock canon, the former Big Black man described the Boston quartet as “at their top-dollar best are blandly entertaining college rock”, adding “Their willingness to be guided by their manager, their record company, and their producers is unparalleled. Never have I seen four cows more anxious to be led around by their nose rings.” But he and Kim Deal became friends, and and their working relationship resumed in 1990 when Albini engineered The Breeders’ debut studio album Pod.
“Her and her sister [Kelley] are in a small way kind of extended family for me and my wife,” Albini said in 2011. ”We’ve done a lot of stuff together, we’ve gone places together, and hung out together a lot.”
After Albini’s death on May 7 this year, aged 61, The Breeders posted a tribute to their friend on Instagram, writing, “He built worlds.”
Albini also engineered much of Nobody Loves You More, while Deal self-produced. Talking about his work on the record, which included recording an orchestra for a song called Summerland, Deal tells The Guardian, “He’s better with me solo. He was more open to being adventurous.”
Speaking about Albini’s passing, Deal adds, “It just devastated an entire community. He was, like, a year younger than me, so it was really surprising.”
Nobody Loves You More will be released via 4AD on November 22.