Steve Albini is a man who lives in Chicago, Illinois and owns and operates the really remarkable Electrical Audio Recording facility. He is the guitar player and primary singer in the band Shellac and he makes a mean cup of fluffy coffee. The 1993 album In Utero by the Washington-State-based band Nirvana is among the thousands of records that Albini has engineered over the course of his time doing that sort of thing and earlier this summer he gave the songs from those sessions fresh mixes for the 20th anniversary edition of In Utero, which is due out in North America on September 24. In our past midnight conversation, Steve discussed his interesting history with Kurt Cobain, his abandoned work with Fugazi, the stories behind making In Utero, why the new edition of the record was mastered to sound the best it possibly can, the highs and lows of the relatively recent rash of remastered reissues that record buyers face each and every day, the mostly good but surprisingly sad and surreal professional aftermath of making In Utero, how it might have changed his life, how the new Shellac LP’s test pressings are on route to the band and artwork is close to finalized (also the new Bottomless Pit record is done!), and why he doesn’t care about Breaking Bad but can tolerate The Newsroom.

Related links: nirvana.com electricalaudio.com vishkhanna.com

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