#electrical audio

[elrocknotienelaculpa]

Steve Albini (No Convencional)

Hace algunos días se publicó la edición de agosto de la revista soundcheck en la que tuve el honor de participar con una columna dedicada a STEVE ALBINI quien desafortunadamente ya no está con nosotros y en la que compartí la importancia y el legado que deja para las nuevas y las no tan nuevas generaciones, más allá del ego, la integridad, el periodismo musical y la parte ética y punk quizá del…

[caseyblu]

Electrical Audio, Chicago IL, 2023

[thejoyofviolentmovement]

New Video: FACS Shares Woozy and Claustrophobic "Desire Path"

New Video: FACS Shares Woozy and Claustrophobic "Desire Path" @wearefacs @trouble_in_mind @another__side__

Chicago-based post-punk outfit and JOVM mainstays FACS‘ sixth studio album Wish Defense is slated for a February 7, 2025 release on CD, cassette, black vinyl and a limited white vinyl variant while supplies last [pre-order] through Trouble In Mind Records.  The album marks the return of original band member Jonathan Van Herik, who replaces longtime bassist Alianna Kalaba. Van Herik’s return to…

[nonesuchrecords]

Portuguese fado singer Carminho has released a new EP, Carminho at Electrical Audio, recorded in collaboration with the late Steve Albini at his iconic Electrical Audio studio in Chicago in 2023. You can hear it here.

“Anyone who worked with Steve Albini knows of his humble authenticity and dedication towards perfecting raw sound," Carminho says. "He made the recordings sound as if we were performing in a fado house in Lisbon."

Carminho tours the US in November.

[stomatopod]

We have a new full-length album, available Oct. 4 on all the streaming services. It's called "DrizzleFizzle," and it's the best thing we've done yet! Pre-orders are available now (including a limited edition CD version) on our Bandcamp page. Stay tuned for shows on Oct. 4 in Milwaukee and Oct. 5 in Chicago to celebrate!

Here's something Ike Turner (Minutes, OUT, Wowza in Kalamazoo) wrote about the album:

--

“All my life I was second best”

Ottumwa, a town of just a shade over 25,000, is situated in southeastern Iowa. There’s a very strong case to be made (outlined in Nick Reding’s Methland) that the national methamphetamine crisis was born there, spearheaded by actor Tom Arnold’s sister, Lori, who herself is probably an actual genius. She herself was far, far more significant than her “famous” brother.  

This juxtaposition of the Norman Rockwell identikit of “ideal” American city with a public scourge the likes of which have been rivaled only by crack cocaine and the fairly recent pill epidemic is a key to unlocking the music of my favorite Ottumwa product, John Huston: Shit is pretty chill and cool until it gets very very unchill and very very bonkers on the turn of a dime.  That trip to the bathroom for a key bump can become  a fistfight in Smoker’s Alley real quick. 

Huston’s long-running, Chicago-based Stomatopod have distilled their at-times-familiar-at-times-what-the-fuck sound down to its essential parts, and in doing so have created their strongest album to date. 

Aided by Sharon Maloy (ex-The Dishes, Bender) on bass and backing vocals, and Elliot Dicks (of Nerves and fFlashlights) on drums, Huston fashions a song cycle that is at once tight and focused, yet in no way averse to peregrinations. The scorched-earth “Tiger Rider” blisters along, calling to mind early 90’s Chicago power pop mainstays Material Issue, with Maloy’s sugary backing vocals and bouncing bass. I have no clue what this song is about, but I feel badly for the main character here! Shit seems NOT GREAT for her. 

The taut “Someone Else’s Enemies” is punctuated by Dick’s INSTANTLY recognizable snare (please try to see them play if only to witness Dick’s amazing hair flailing around in full Animal mode). Here again, the battles picked of where to deploy Maloy is expertly decided. She adds a patina of charm to everything she touches. 

The centerpiece of the album is Huston’s finest song, “Ocean Slider.” I mean that quite literally, too.  I’ve been listening to his music for years and years (we bonded in a hotel room at a music festival over a shared love of Roseanne), and this song winnows down his strengths into one brief glimmer of beauty.  Recalling his short-lived, well-loved project Mars Hill, “Ocean Slider” unfolds like a sunset on the prairie, one I’m certain Huston witnessed thousands of times growing up where he did. When the song takes off, we’re in a smoky club in South Bend or Ann Arbor or Milwaukee in 1992, with only promise and fortune and marriages and kids in front of us.  But “no one’s ever really good or smart enough; no one ever wants to be the runner up,” but at the end of the day we need Salieri as much as we do Mozart. This song scratches a very particular itch if you came up in a scene in the Midwest. 

This is his finest work; he spins five plates at once and then dips out for a smoke break.  

DrizzleFizzle (yes, that is what they named their album) is the most cohesive statement the band has created, and leaves me stoked for what is to come for this band. 

I’m proud to know these fools, and I’m extra proud to know that someone from the veritable middle of nowhere has the rounds in the chamber to unload something as important as this work. That he’s aided by two willing compatriots in “this thing of ours” only speaks to what a significant BAND they are at this stage in their arc.  

Long may they run. 

– Isaac Turner, Kalamazoo, Mich. August 2024

[zoocoup]

Steve Albini

Photo: Steve Albini and Todd Trainer on stage playing, June 2001 at the Congress Theater in Chicago. Shellac was the opener on a bill with the Ex and Fugazi. Albini is caught mid-action playing guitar, his custom amps and speakers setup behind him.

I was never a Big Black fan or much of a Shellac fan (though I did get to see them twice with Fugazi). But there is a large percentage of my record collection that was either recorded by Steve Albini or produced at his studio, Electrical Audio. The man has directly and indirectly made a huge impression on my musical tastes the past 30+ years.

I wanted to call out some of the records I love that were recorded by Albini but might not have been mentioned in his obituaries:

Shannon Wright / Over the Sun

Neurosis / Honor Found in Decay

mclusky / mclusky do dallas

Electrelane / The Power Out

Godspeed You! Black Emperor / Yanqui U.X.O.

Edith Frost / Wonder, Wonder

Albini was also quite a talker, and it was always fun to listen to him on Vish Khanna's Kreative Kontrol podcast over the years, including:

http://vishkhanna.com/2015/11/12/ep-223-ian-mackaye-steve-albini-part-i/

http://vishkhanna.com/2015/11/17/ep-224-ian-mackaye-steve-albini-part-ii/

http://vishkhanna.com/2018/12/20/ep-453-steve-albini/

http://vishkhanna.com/2022/12/15/ep-741-steve-albini/

Here's one of my all time faves ripping the shit out of Albini's “Kerosene”

Lastly, I want to specifically call out “bide” by The Love Story. I have played this song so many times since 2007.

[lootwijk]

Fucking Steve fucking died today.

[two-pears-in-a-trenchcoat]

"i am going to caboose you" says the evil caboose man

[thejoyofviolentmovement]

New Video: FACS Shares Angular "Wish Defense"

New Video: FACS Shares Angular "Wish Defense" @wearefacs @trouble_in_mind @another__side__

Back in 2013, Chicago-based post-punk act Disappears — founding member Brian Case (vocals, guitar) along with  Noah Leger (drums), Jonathan Van Herik (guitar) and Damon Carruesco (bass) — released two of my favorite efforts of the past decade or so: the atmospheric and tempestuous Kone EP and the tense, raging Era. Damon Carruesco left the band in 2017. The band’s remaining members — Case, Leger…

[undertheelectricstarspodcast]

The final season of Under the Electric Stars is now casting! If you want to play one of the villains for this final season, get your auditions in before January 10th, 2025!

[darlin-collins]

Damien who had some hair getting constantly into his eye one day so he just heated 2 of his fingers and organically ironed it out of his face

lasko who was late and showered and just wind-blew his hair dry as he was getting ready and on the way there

[scribblegoblin]

Fun fact! My first ever single is out on YouTube! Go stream now if you want or not I totally don't care at all haha please

[eightiesfan]

Electric Dreams (Dir. Steve Barron - 1984)

[kandidandi]

i've always wondered what the whirrrr would actually sound like