In the fall of 1992, Fugazi traveled to Chicago to record with Steve Albini at his studio Electrical Audio, which at the time was located in a basement on North Francisco. The band and Albini had admired each other from afar, and they struck up an immediate affinity during the sessions. They were only supposed to record a few songs, but once things got rolling, they ended up tracking 12 — the entirety of what would later become the In On The Kill Taker tracklist.
Fugazi and Albini had an epic hang that weekend, and in the Electrical Audio control room, they loved what they were hearing. But on the drive back to Washington, DC, the band realized there was something off about the recordings. Albini later came to the same conclusion. Fugazi decided not to release these sessions, instead capturing the same material at Inner Ear Studio with producer Ted Niceley and releasing those tracks as In On The Kill Taker.
The Albini sessions have since been widely bootlegged and are the subject of intense lore. Albini and Ian MacKaye shed some light on them on an episode of Kreative Kontrol in 2015. But they've never been officially released until now.
Today, Fugazi have put the full Albini sessions up for sale on Bandcamp. The band is donating its share of the proceeds to Letters Charity, a Chicago nonprofit providing direct assistance to families facing urgent financial hardship, which Albini tirelessly supported for decades. It's Bandcamp Friday, so 100% of today's profits will be directed to Letters Charity.
Two songs are streaming to give you a taste, and they sound so different from the versions that ended up on In On The Kill Taker. Check them out, then buy the whole thing at Bandcamp.
