Steve Albini begins his rise to indie ubiquity

January 1986: Number 30 in our series of the 50 key events in the history of indie musicRants in US fanzines had already earned Steve Albini the enmity of the Chicago music community, and his group Big Black were as uncompromising as their frontman: a martial assault of painfully trebly guitar riffs, bleak barked vocals and the inhuman pulse of their drum machine, a Roland TR-606. The sleeve to Atomizer, their 1986 debut LP, presented the pending destruction of Earth with the lunatic wit of a Ch...

Read full article Share article