It’s fairly common for a music producer to become synonymous with a specific sound, but it’s much more rare for them to become the stand-in for an entire ideology. Over the course of his nearly 40 years in music, Steve Albini has become as known for the records he’s made—both as a recording engineer and as a musician—as for his fiercely independent spirit. He’s compared the music industry to a parasite , and has routinely denied credit for the records he’s worked on, meaning that his work has been credited to pseudonyms such “Li’l Weed” or “Buck Naked,” and even his deceased cat Fluss. His no-nonsense approach to making records has become the thing of lore, as he’s known to almost inattentively listen to performances instead of keeping his hands on the dial and attempting to change a band’s natural sound.

Where Albini is often understated as a producer, as an artist, he’s all about big, bold gestures. With every band he’s formed, from the industrial throbs of Big Black, to the noise-indebted Rapeman (named after the controversial manga series, resulting in a spotty catalog on streaming services), all the way to the experimental post-hardcore of Shellac, Albini has used his art to explore the worst facets of humanity. His music is ugly, and his lyrics even uglier. Every song is a way of exploring motivations that aren’t his own, but instead confront the listener with images that are truly heinous. It’s satirical, but it’s played straight, and it’s what makes listening to his music both provocative and compelling.

But while it’s easy to view Albini as an early example of an edgelord, his personal life rebukes such critiques. For the past two decades, he and his wife Heather Whinna have spent their holiday seasons fulfilling children’s letters to Santa, even when the postal service tried to put an end to it. He’s an avowed cat lover and now a World Series of Poker champion, and he still records every band cheaply, making it so his services are always available to those that have an interest in them. He’s a curmudgeon, but a loveable one.

Albini exists in a world of contradictions, and he likes it that way. For as controversial as his work can be, he values art above all else. It’s why he never oversteps as an engineer, able to work alongside everyone from Nirvana and The Pixies to Neurosis and Joanna Newsom and have it make sense. Both as an engineer and musician, Albini has found a way to stand out simply by acting in ways few others would dare.

Steve Albini Does Industrial

Though he’d likely balk at being lumped in with such a genre, it’s hard not to see Albini’s work in the 80s as anything other than an early example of industrial. Formed in 1981, Big Black ran parallel to the emerging hardcore scene in America while also pushing back against it. Albini didn’t have much use for the genre’s increased homogeneity, so much so that in the 2007 documentary You Weren’t There, Articles Of Faith frontman Vic Bondi challenged Albini to a fight over the shots he took at his band in the early 80s. The result was that Big Black sounded little like a hardcore band, even if they’d always carry that association. 1982’s Lungs was effectively a solo endeavor, as Albini recorded all the instruments aside from drums, which were handled by a Roland TR-606 drum machine that would be credited as “Roland” on every Big Black release.