His work with Pixies and The Breeders who are bands I also love is up there too for me.

Meeting Steve Albini and working with him changed the course of my life. He taught me so much about music, and life. Steve was a great friend - wise, kind and generous. I am so grateful.
My thoughts are with him and his family and friends as we suffer his loss.

I wanted to work with Steve from the moment I heard Surfer Rosa by Pixies. I had never heard anything as powerfully moving, both emotionally and sonically, and knew I wanted to hear my songs within that sound – a sound so alive, it was as if you were there in the room while the blaze of emotion was taking place.

Steve spent the first day of our recording session pacing and measuring the live room at Pachyderm [studio in Minnesota]. He would stand and look at the room a long time from different positions, intermittently clapping his hands. The band and I came and went, but Steve stayed from dawn till the late evening, absorbing and feeling the “shape” of the room, and learning what it could give him. I think we knew instinctively to leave Steve alone in the space to find what he was looking for.

He re-tuned Rob [Ellis]’s drum kit so it would be enhanced by the room and sing with it. He placed microphones in carefully measured positions to catch and open as sound met them at certain volumes. He set up our amps and guitars in the places he knew best for the room and the types of players we were.

He was driven. Driven to explore and learn from sound and space, but also mysteriously aligned with it in a way I didn’t quite understand, but knew to respect and try to learn from. He was an alchemist: patient, methodical, sensitive. Ready to capture the moment when it came. Work was hard and long as we all reached for something he knew would appear, and it did.

This intensity was offset by pauses when Steve might set his feet on fire. He was a funny man as well as being kind, intelligent and charming. I was drawn to him and his mystery, and my sadness at his death makes me realise how much I valued and loved this man. I feel lucky to have walked alongside him for a short while on this earth.

@sarahlees4587
6 months ago
Thank you Polly for the beautiful rendering of this at Jez Hogg's funeral. Sweet lady. X