There have been numerous tributes in the wake of legendary producer and engineer Steve Albini’s death last week, at the age of 61. Some exhaustively trace his history in iconic Chicago bands like Big Black and Shellac — or his unique production work for bands like Nirvana (“In Utero”), the Breeders, PJ Harvey, Bush, and scores of others. Most detail his notoriously acerbic candor, often about bands he’d recorded. (Steve on the Pixies: “Never have I seen four cows more anxious to be led around by their nose rings.”) And most mention “The Problem with Music,” his oft-quoted 1993 Baffler screed — still spot-on roughly 30 years later — that likens signing with a major record label to swimming backwards through a trench filled with runny shit. (It gets less complimentary from there.)
Steve Albini with Lil Bub, the magical space cat, at Electrical Audio.
The phrase “fucked-up and photocopied” is often used to
describe the aesthetic of punk graphics. Imagine visuals that have been chopped,
warped, repeated, inverted, and so on, until the meaning becomes distorted and
new. While the work of the late designer Vaughan Oliver grew in increasing
complexity over the course of his long career, it always retained a certain
roughness and the spark, the grit of the imperfect. That fucked-up-ness, if you
will. As he himself said of his work with the Pixies (perhaps the band that he
will be most associated with, despite working with a broad spectrum of
musicians, artists and clients): “You imagine designing sleeves for your own
record collection. The David Lynchian moods in there, the black humor, the
surrealism — there’s such natural inspiration for me.”
1) Vaughan Oliver as a young man. 2) 4AD PMT experiment 3) Vaughan + Bruce Gilbert (Wire) at the ICA, 1993. (Photo by me) 4) Vaughan and a skirt of eels.
Natural? Or unnatural? Either way, Vaughan never looked to the usual sources to draw inspiration. (And his weapon was often the now-obsolete PMT camera, a crucial ally in making beautiful accidents with type and texture.) “I would take something from Vaughan’s experience and his body of work and think about what happens when you step away from the computer and when you use your hands,” Vaughan’s peer, Adrian Shaughnessy, has noted. “Vaughan certainly advocated the use of hands in his teaching. And I suspect, deep down, he actually regretted the computerization of graphic design. Keep in mind that a lot of the best work was done manually.”
Shaughnessy was just one of the speakers reflecting on the work and legacy of Vaughan Oliver at the Glasshouse (formerly the Sage Gateshead) in Newcastle, UK, on September 14. Vaughan’s v23 colleagues, Chris Bigg and Timothy O’Donnell, also delved deep into their memories of their close-knit, challenging and fruitful collaboration at 4AD, where Vaughan served as the in-house designer for 20 years. The audience represented a wide swath of musicians, designers and photographers whose careers and working methods were forever warped, thanks to their work with the formidable V.O. Attendees included Miki Berenyi from Lush, Anja Huwe and Manuela Zwingman from Xmal Deutschland, artist Russell Mills, photographers Dominic Davies and Kevin Westenberg, Glen Johnson from Piano Magic, and Vaughan’s family, to name but a few. (The lecture also marked the inauguration of the Vaughan Oliver Graphic Design Scholarships, a 10-year initiative supported by 4AD to provide opportunities for talented students to study design at Vaughan’s alma mater, Northumbria University.)
Rema-Rema in front of Royal Albert Hall, 1979. Photo by Paul Stahl. Left-right: Mark Cox, Mick Allen, Gary Asquith, Marco Pirroni, Max.
Until 2019, the sole recorded evidence of the short-lived London quintet Rema-Rema was a 4-song, 12” EP released by iconic label 4AD. (BAD 5, for those taking notes.) Wrapped in a striking George Rodger photo of Korongo Nuba tribesmen, Wheel in the Roses grabs you by the lapels with “Feedback Song,” which opens with a chorus of voices (no instruments) chanting the band’s name — this is the band as a gang, with a signature schoolyard chant.* At 30 seconds, the voices drop out, and a lone bass note booms out, setting an insistent rhythm met 45 seconds later by a skeletal drum pattern filling in the wide-open space. A clarion-call synth snakes through, then ringing feedback. The feral vocals return at the 3-minute mark, sailing over the grinding backdrop with staccato insistence. Each band member gets their introduction before the song builds up to a weird, gripping groove that’s as bracing now as it was in 1980, when it served as Exhibit A for a promising band with an ignominious end.
