In the winter of 2013, guitarist Kerry McCoy and vocalist George Clarke — founding members of black metal innovators Deafheaven — went into the studio to record what would eventually come their breakthrough album Sunbather. Armed with home-recorded demos and high ambitions, they were ready, but they were scared as hell.

"I just wanted to make sure that the record was like... not perfect... but like, really on point," McCoy said in a 2013 promo video. 

Although their debut album, 2011's Roads to Judah, had succeeded in raising a few eyebrows, Deafhaven were still figuring out who and what exactly they were. Clarke and McCoy were still living in San Francisco, still working terrible jobs, and doing whatever they could to pay the bills, and music was their only way out of this life. They wanted their next record to be on point simply because it had to be.

On June 10, their savior came into the world.  An album of beautiful contradictions,Sunbather became one of the most important rock releases of the decade.  Nothing about the album — from its layered arrangements that blend black metal with post-rock, pop, and shoegaze, to its pink, sun-kissed album art —  fit neatly into what black metal (or any genre for that matter) was considered to be. 

Along with new drummer Daniel Tracey, McCoy and Clarke reached for the heavens from within their own personal hell. And that's what Sunbather does so well: finding light within the cracks of darkness. From the epic opener "Dream House" to the gorgeous, knee-buckling closer "The Pecan Tree," the album is in constant motion, shifting back and forth between dreamy post-rock, immense nuclear explosiveness, and cathartic payoffs. Its songs move with a churning fluidity, building to a climax before they crumble again. Clarke's sharp, piercing howls along with McCoy’s cascading avalanche of guitars and Tracey's rapid-fire bursts of drums together created an energy so grand, it could move mountains.

At the heart of Sunbather is a deeply personal album told from the perspective of people yearning to live in peace. Lyricist Clarke would gaze into San Francisco's many penthouse apartments on his walk home after a long day at work, wondering what it would be like to live obviously and carefree. On the album’s title track, a Cohen-esque narrator drives through an affluent neighborhood, only to become more depressed at the sight of a young woman lying on the grass among the green trees. 

While the lyrics are mostly indecipherable on record, if you take the time to look up what’s being said, you’ll find that Clarke’s words grapple with insecurity, the ability (or inability) to love, and whether there is a better life out there waiting. The album is vulnerable, romantic, and personal. As Clarke put it in 2013, "Sunbather is like ripping pages out of my journal." 

With its shrieking vocals and thrashing guitars, black metal is raw, brutal, and by nature, not easily accessible. Born out of Norway in the 1980s, bands like Mayhem, Emperor, and Darkthrone toiled in dark, gruesome imagery and some questionable values. Their music sounded as if it came straight from the depths of hell. They sing about war, destruction, and death; the loud, intense music is meant to invoke a sense of dread. It’s not for the faint of heart, and its bands can be quite intimidating. For devotees, that’s part of the appeal. Being in black metal means surrounding yourself in the darkness; you either get it, or you don’t.

At face value, it makes sense that Deafheaven would be categorized as black metal. Their music can be just as intense as any other band in the genre, but the emotional depth and nakedness on Sunbather is part of what separates Deafheaven from their peers. It’s a different kind of intensity that leaves room for warmth and hope, and ultimately broadened their appeal beyond the black metal scene. 

They bared their souls in a way most metal bands would not dare, choosing not to hide behind corpse face paint or technical prowess. The members of Deafheaven didn’t play the part of a stereotypical Scandinavian metal band: They didn’t have long, flowing hair; they wore skinny jeans and Vans sneakers. Their singer could’ve been a model in a different life, and because they were so clean-cut, Deafheaven were accused of being hipster posers who didn’t make "real" metal music. 

A "true" black metal band would not reach for the rafters like U2 as they do in the "Dream House" finale, nor would their interludes call to mind Wilco or Oasis. A real metal group wouldn't listen to Drake, an artist Deafheaven has admitted to being fans of and whose music touches upon similar themes.

As a result Deafheaven were immediately cast as outsiders in their own scene.

Whereas the scope of Sunbather might have displeased hardcore metalheads, the album's accessibility inadvertently opened new doors for black metal, a genre traditionally against any sort of evolution or deviation. By making heavy music that reflected the music they consumed, Deafhaven became one of the first bands to dismantle genre-gatekeeping. 

Indeed, Sunbather is just as indebted to My Bloody Valentine and Explosions in the Sky as it is Emperor’s black metal classic In the Nightside Eclipse. Sunbather used black metal as a vehicle to amplify a vast palate of emotion.

For its wide appeal and depth, Sunbather received significant acclaim in 2013 from all ends of the critical spectrum. The album appeared at the top of numerous year-end best of lists, and has since been named one of the 100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time by Rolling Stone. 

In an era before streaming allowed easy access to a myriad of musical styles, genre-bending albums like Sunbather were still relatively novel, and even more so in hard rock circles. Sunbather provided the blueprint for bands like Turnstile, whose latest album GLOW ON has seen them to outgrow the similarly cloistered hardcore scene they were brought up in. But Deafheaven's influence can be heard broadly, through the work of artists as diverse as Bartees Strange, Lil Yachty and Taylor Swift — each of whom have boldly embraced genre fluidity.

In the 10 years since Sunbather, Deafheaven have become one of metal’s most vital bands, and continue to change the way we think about the genre. The band have continued to shape-shift with each album release: 2015’s New Bermuda saw them lean more into thrash metal, while 2018’s Ordinary Corrupt Human Love was a bit sunnier and slightly more indebted to '90s alternative rock. Their latest record, 2021's Infinite Granite, eschewed black metal all together in favor of a gentler, dreamier sound that has  more in common with the Smiths than Cradle of Filth. 

While Deafheaven continues to evolve and move further away from their black metal roots, Sunbather remains their crowning achievement. On that album, they somehow managed to blend oil and vinegar, creating a concoction of genres that remained true to their vision. It couldn’t have been more on point. 

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Album art should ideally describe what's inside in some way, but Deafheaven's latest is unique in that it literally shows music. What may look like a grainy Voyager photo of Neptune in its indigo immensity is actually the first minutes of the opening track "Shellstar," processed through a visualizer and photographed in long exposure. To singer George Clarke, the resultant orb of blue specks on coal-black connotes "space or infinity, but it's also quite embryonic... almost like a place of birth."

The band is also unique in that they treat themselves as solely musicians. In a field of swollen egos, this isn't a given. Ever since 2013's Sunbather, which inspired outsized reactions from zealots and haters alike, the GRAMMY-nominated five-piece—Clarke, guitarists Kerry McCoy and Shiv Mehra, bassist Chris Johnson and drummer Daniel Tracy—has made a point to simply write the best music they can and not make a big deal out it. In a hailstorm of memes about crew-cuts and delay pedals and weeping in awe, Deafheaven simply worked hard.

"We're just five dudes who like catchy guitars and fast drums," McCoy told Rolling Stone somewhat tersely that year. "It's not anything special. What we do is just really, really simple."

Now, with their new album, Infinite Granite, which arrives August 20 via Sargent House, they get to fully enjoy the rewards of not believing their own hype. In what's already the primary talking point surrounding the album, Clarke doesn't scream throughout 85 percent of it, but croons. On advance singles "In Blur," "Great Mass of Color" and "The Gnashing," he displays just how hard he worked to not sound tentative, or coached, but confident—as if he had sung since the very first record.

In a wide-ranging interview with GRAMMY.com, George Clarke opens up about the cosmic and literary inspirations behind Infinite Granite, his creative development over the last year and a half and why, in the end, this is "just a record" and nothing more.

What's your life been like for the past year and a half?

It was fine, to be honest. The tour cancelations were a bit of a hit, but we were able to do this makeshift live record in-studio featuring songs we were going to play that year. That came together quickly and we were able to do that, which felt good. We were at the end of our cycle for Ordinary, so we had it easier than a lot of people did. We were able to settle into a writing period, so we started taking the necessary steps to get that done.

Which, of course, had its own difficulties, because we were very conscious of everything happening and we wanted to be as safe as possible. People were getting tested all the time and we were traveling to different studios with masks and all that, which kind of heightened the atmosphere of it, I think, and made things a little more difficult. But overall, it was good. We used the period to try to be creative and not waste what we saw as an opportunity.

Once the record finished, I went to New Zealand and lived there from January until about the beginning of May. Then, I've been back in L.A. since then, just kind of rolling out the album. I came back to start this whole experience, which has been really nice.

Was it a shock to the system after riding around in a van or bus for 10 years?

Yeah, definitely, especially this past year. We were spending a lot of time with each other. We worked on this record longer than any previous one, so we were together a lot, and that was great and felt very natural. But it was interesting not being on the road. Being at home for that amount of time is not something any of us are used to. That has increased throughout 2021 because we're not working on the record and not seeing each other as much. We're all eagerly anticipating that side of things to pick up again.

Did the other guys make it through OK, financially or otherwise?

Yeah, they did. That was one of the first things that happened: We had an emergency meeting and looked at all our accounts. We keep things for savings and this sort of thing. We were thankfully able to budget throughout the year so everyone could be as comfortable as possible. And, of course, unemployment as well.

Thankfully, everyone is alright, but there have definitely been times of stress. Everyone has picked up side work here and there, but that's also just in an effort to keep busy, I think. That was the other thing: The extreme boredom, the extreme idle feeling of the last year got to people a little bit.

I'm not sure how other journalists will receive Infinite Granite, but to me, it stands out from the rest. Hearing you let loose with a scream at the end—rather than screaming all the way through—gave me a feeling I hadn't gotten from any past Deafheaven record.

Thank you. I have no idea either! When we were making it, it wasn't a thought. There were jokes and things like that, but we weren't really consciously considering it. And then after the record was finished, we started to. I think that's what happens: Your head kind of clears and you sort of leave the cave and you're like, "Oh. How are people going to hear this? This actually might be quite interesting, to see what the reaction is."

I will say that we spent a lot of time on it and I think there's a lot of detail in it that wasn't necessarily present in our other albums. I think we really wanted to work more with nuance this time around.

One thing that's always struck me about Deafheaven is that you guys would open for Lamb of God or Slipknot—and then go play with non-heavy artists like Slowdive or Emma Ruth Rundle—with something of a smirk. I don't sense that you guys had existential crises along the way.

I think that early on, we simply saw that we could do both.

Just by getting the opportunity to do both, we saw that as an advantage, like an interesting position that not a lot of people were able to have. Say another band had the same position: They'd be like, "Oh, even if we can do both, we want to shy away from this and only work within this kind of thing. I don't know how an indie audience is going to respond to this, so we should always just take the Lamb of God opportunities," or vice versa.

"I think what we do is serious music, but you don't want to always feel like you have to go to battle for your art."

We would rather say yes to everything. It's all part of the greater experience of playing music like this. I think there's maybe a bit of a smirk, but it's just like an acknowledgement of how strangely unique it all is. Like, "That does work!" or "We can make it work!" and there's something fun about that. That's part of what makes what we do fun, and we have to have some of that.

At the same time, we kind of had to defend ourselves throughout our whole career, and that's a little tedious. At that point, it starts to get a little self-serious. I think what we do is serious music, but you don't want to always feel like you have to go to battle for your art.

Back in the Sunbather era, I also sensed some bemusement at your haters, like, "We're not really black metal? They're making memes about us? Fine, great, I don't care."

I was kind of surprised by it, really: People really care! Sometimes that's funny. That's the honest attitude that we have maintained, and, in a way, have had to maintain. It gets a little unnerving when people tell you, "I think this is the greatest thing ever made," or "This saved my life."

It's not just the negative things. It's quite often the very true and positive things that make you have to recalibrate and be like, "Look, everyone, while I'm glad people are having an emotional reaction to the music—and while I want them to, and that's part of the intention of making it—it also needs to be stated, for good and for bad, however you choose to see it, there are just songs. We're just people in a room trying to be creative and not be bored." 

Your music is often very heightened and does elicit extreme emotional responses. Have you ever felt invaded by fans or like people were getting creepy about it?

No, no. I've never really felt that. It's always been a lot of love. It's just good to be objective sometimes, I think. Like I said, that recalibration. It's just reminding everyone that, at least from our standpoint, this is just something that we're doing.

That record in particular [Sunbather], I was really surprised at how people gravitated toward it and how it became such a conversation piece, almost like a weird moment in the subculture. From that kind of came what you were talking about earlier, where it's like, "Man, we're like memes. Oh, funny. People are really invested." 

And from it came so much good, so I'm thankful that we're able to experience that, but it was funny.

Deafheaven's George Clarke performing in Oslo in 2018. Photo: Avalon/PYMCA/Gonzales Photo/Per-Otto Oppi/Universal Images Group via Getty Images​

Was there a moment where the irritation of needing to defend yourselves began to loosen up and you guys could just be a rock band?

Yeah, yeah. We talked about this a little bit during Ordinary amongst ourselves. At the time, we were feeling really alleviated from not being so centered in the conversation. 

I think what it was was we just stuck around long enough. Perhaps, if we had gone away after Sunbather, we would always be this thing, but because we continued forward making music we wanted to make and touring and not really making a big deal out of it, I think people are like, "OK, I can focus on something else."

When we were first coming out, there were a couple of different "controversial" bands that have all, I think, outgrown that. [Hunter Hunt-Hendrix] of Liturgy being another one, who just does her own thing and expands with each record. I think perhaps it is just a time thing, but regardless of the reason, yeah, it's freeing to be in that position. And I still feel that freedom.

Even if it is still a conversation—us at large—I don't see a ton of it.

What prompted the move from Anti- to Sargent House for Infinite Granite? I imagine you merely fulfilled your contract, but I don't want to presume.

Yes, that is it—we fulfilled the contract. I love Anti- and we had a very good experience with them.

Since we knew we were going to be working with Justin [Meldal-Johnsen] fairly early on, there was an idea with this record to expand the musical palette and expand the production and, along with that, expand those budgets while simultaneously shrinking the business side and taking more control over it and working closer with Sargent House in a more symbiotic way, because from a management side, we've been together so long.

There was an idea to kind of bring everything home while we were making this sound and delivery and art and all that much more expansive.

Since you guys have been with them forever, it doesn't strike me as downsizing, but consolidating.

That's exactly it. It's just putting everything under a smaller umbrella and having more control. Not to expand on it too far, but there was this idea that people would think the aspirations for this record were more commercial.

I think on a subconscious level, sticking with Sargent House and, in fact, even leaving Anti-, would be kind of a silent response to that curiosity. Just being like, "No, this is purely an artistic move, and we want to do it with the people we've known and gotten to trust over the past decade.

Were people starting to think you were reaching for pop appeal?

I'm not sure if that's a widespread idea, but it was in the realm of what people could be thinking. That's something I anticipated and was conscious of. I think it's an interesting optic to pursue, I guess, this bigger, more rock sound while honing everything in on the business side of things.

When I first saw the album cover, I figured it was a NASA photo. Then I looked at it more closely and realized it wasn't, and then I read that [Touché Amoré's] Nick Steinhardt designed it.

It's funny: Nick and I spent months talking about the album. I sent him the lyrics and said, "This is how I'm feeling about it," and so on. Blue was present very early on, and both of us, honestly, were envisioning this sort of blue mass. We both had this idea of spherical immensity—a strange, strong spherical image.

From that, he basically created an MP3 visualizer that rotates 360 degrees as the song plays. It's made up of all these dots and their movement shifts with the song, and then, as the soundbar does its 360-degree rotations, we took long-exposure photographs of those rotations. The cover is actually the first couple of minutes of the first song, and each track has its own corresponding orb that's made of the music.

We were thinking about concept albums and talking about how artwork of conceptual records always reflects the lyrical content. For this, we wanted to kind of flip that on its head and have artwork that literally was a visual embodiment of what was happening sonically.

He did some tests and made maybe 300 or 400 of them, which all looked fairly similar. We just kind of went through and I was really struck by the one that made it to the cover. To me, not only does it have a kind of idea of space or infinity, but it's also quite embryonic. I look at it almost like a place of birth.

Did the track title "Neptune Raining Diamonds" grow out of it?

They were kind of separate ideas. I heard the guys making "Neptune Raining Diamonds" and, to me, it just kind of sounds like that. I was doing some reading and there was a National Geographic article on how Neptune rains diamonds. It was talking about all the atmospheric pressure that makes this effect. I thought it was really interesting and, to me, it's what that track sounded like.

Can you imagine anything more visually splendorous than that?

When I saw the headline in the article, I thought the same thing! I was like, "Man, that visual is incredible." I can't really take the credit for it, but it did make me feel a certain way.

I'm sure some are making a big deal out of the fact that you sing through 85 percent of this record, but to me, it's a completely natural evolution. I think of "Night People" from Ordinary Corrupt Human Love. Did you always like to sing? Which singers have stuck with you over the years?

A ton. I've listened to traditional singing—or whatever you want to call it—artists forever. Some of my favorite performers are non-metal performers.

But that said, no. It was nothing that I really pursued myself outside of the shower, you know what I mean? Outside of just fun on my own, like most people do, I never really pursued it.

I was in theater for four or five years, and I did musical theater during that time. But even that was mostly secondary. I preferred drama. I didn't do anything for a long time, and it was something we had discussed in the band and something I was pulling toward and experimented with on a couple of occasions on Ordinary.

Once we were given all this time and opportunity to write this album, I decided I wanted to take it more seriously and fully pursue the idea.

Deafheaven at the 2019 GRAMMY Awards. Photo: Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images

Hundreds of shows into your career, did you start to feel limited by screaming?

Not so much in its expression. I still feel like it is oftentimes the ultimate way for me to express an idea or emotion, to express that level of intensity. I still think, ultimately, it is a preference of mine. But in terms of technique, I was feeling limited. I just kind of felt like I had done all I could do with my range, stamina, rhythm and everything else.

Like you said, we tour quite often. I think we had done, in that year, five full tours. That definitely was a catalyst for those decisions as well, or it just reinforced those feelings. I wanted to be fully sure this was a decision I wanted to make before I did it.

I remember playing that show in January, and we had already been kind of working on songs and I had been thinking about the clean-vocal idea. After that January 2020 show, I knew that I definitely wanted to pursue it.

You mentioned in a podcast with [Touché Amoré's] Jeremy Bolm that you had started to be at odds with your position in the band. That you felt like the musical weak link in some way. Was that a motivation as well?

I think so. By the winter of 2019, we had had two songs and maybe the skeleton of a third. I knew at that point this wasn't going to work [with screaming]. We could have pursued it anyway, but I just wouldn't have been happy.

The guys often don't see that juxtaposition as wrong in any scenario. I think they're always comfortable with and wanting a harsh vocal on whatever kind of bed they end up creating. But for me, it was just the artistic aspect of it. I wanted to be challenged in that way.

When people say "Oh, he's singing now," it's so much more than just the tone. The writing is so different. It's not one-note rhythm writing, which is what aggressive vocals are. You're not moving a lot melodically. It's purely rhythm. For this, you need lot more. And if you want to make something creative and not just standard, you need to have dexterity in your vocal and a little bit of range and a lot of confidence.

"In terms of technique, I was feeling limited. I just kind of felt like I had done all I could do with my range, stamina, rhythm and everything else."

It was developing those things with JMJ [Justin Meldal-Johnsen] that, to me, really got it over the finish line. It's not just hitting the notes. It's your delivery. It's wanting to make choruses. And I've said this a lot, but I'll say it again: I've never written a chorus at all.

I've been listening to them my whole life, so it's like, "What eras do I want to link to mine? How am I feeling? Am I listening to a lot of '70s music, or '80s music, or '90s music? Where am I pulling from?" Essentially, I have a blank canvas here. I think that's what made it take as long as I did because I worked on them for over a year, continuously.

You could have easily gone off the rails with overly complex melodies, but the chorus to "Great Mass of Color" is three notes. It seems like you've stripped down your melodic vocabulary for maximum catchiness.

We did, yeah! Especially between me and Justin, there's a lot of those conversations. I was having to rework my lyrics in different ways and there was a little bit of strain. I didn't want to lose ideas, but I did want to filter them in a way that was simple enough to be effective. A chorus is kind of a universal thing. It doesn't need to be the highest brow. It just needs to be impactful and emotional.

But then you have "Villain," one of the first songs we worked on vocally, with all the falsetto things. That was more of a product of what you're saying. It's this big empty canvas where I could do whatever I want, so there are moments where there are jumps into less standard territory. I was hoping for a blend between the two.

You mentioned Chet Baker as an influence on your singing voice. I'm a Chet Baker lunatic.

That rules. A little bit! I was trying to find voices that had a sweet strength to them. When I was deciding on how I wanted my vocal approach to be, one of the things I was considering was shoegaze live and how it's very difficult to mix, especially in smaller clubs. From the top down, everyone has a little bit of struggle. I knew how the music was developing, so I needed a voice where I could compete with loud guitars but not always be full rock.

There are moments on the record where I accentuate more of this rocking voice, but what I described is sweet strength that has legs to it. I find that a lot with [Chet Baker]. I was listening to a lot of Nina Simone and Tears for Fears and stuff that has a dreamy bed of music but doesn't sacrifice the vocal to that sound. It has a very impactful voice on top of it to, in a way, compete.

It's a balancing act between insubstantial, wispy shoegaze vocals and, like, Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Yes, yes, yes, exactly. I dabbled in both. There are so many demos, in part, because I wanted to record everything to hear it back. And, yes, I was going both directions and was hoping to find a middle ground, and maybe I did. I don't know. It's why songs like "In Blur" or "The Gnashing" have a different tonal quality than "Other Language" or "Great Mass of Color."

Chet kind of tossed his voice, but not flimsily. He owned the high notes.

It's that control. That's exactly what I mean. It's less breathy, less careless. They're not supposed to be what shines in shoegaze; it's just another textural element. And we didn't want to be a shoegaze band. I think while this record has a lot of that in there, I wouldn't call it that. Our defining marker was that vocal decision.

Fans glom onto one lyric or another with each Deafheaven record, but I feel like your lyrics remain weirdly underdiscussed. What can you tell me about your lyrical approach for this one? What are you reading lately?

Thank you. I'm into these lyrics. They're a real patchwork of all these different themes, and no song is about any singular thing, necessarily. They have major motifs, but it's all [multifaceted]. The reason is that, originally, I wanted it to be kind of a concept record surrounding family—estranged family, and how those figures find their way into your life in this bigger connection.

But through the course of years, I was reflecting so much on all the heightened emotion of 2020 and the California fires that were happening and the protests and all these things. Those were finding their way into the lyrics, and I just kind of made a patchwork of both things. There's equal parts familial reflection and a present-day doomsday feeling.

I'm trying to think of what I was reading. I've been reading a lot of political stuff in the last year and a half. I felt my headspace was in that area. But, yeah, a lot of Polish stuff. I was reading Aleksander Wat, Szymborska, Milosz. I was reading a lot of Lydia Davis. I got that essay and short story anthology she put out. That's some of them.

You post your photography on Instagram, and I know you put out a couple of books of poetry. It seems like you're finding ways to express yourself beyond this thing you do 10 months a year.

Yeah, I'd like to do more of that. I am doing more of that. Maybe since I turned 30, I've been in this highly motivated zone, just really wanting to do things. Last year probably perpetuated it some, but I'm just looking to be busy. I love all those steps—conceptualizing and then seeing something through, whether it's writing or photography or music. It's all kind of thrilling. I think all that stuff is just in an effort to keep my brain occupied.

Or maybe just becoming a more balanced human being?

And learning! I'd never picked up a camera. I got a camera a few years ago and, through books and YouTube and whatever else, and texting friends that shoot film, I learned all this stuff. I develop and scan everything at my place. It's been cool to exercise that muscle more.

How did you get over the hump of "amateur photography"?

Oh, I'm amateur hour through and through. I'm an absolute hobbyist. Thankfully, a couple of friends have asked me to take their photo and it's great practice, but anything that looks professional or set-up is just [me] having some fun with it. I've taken so many and there's a lot of s**t. My goal is always to have a high average of what I call "keeps" from each roll, and I'm still on the low. [Laughs.]

What's going through your head as you prepare to head back on tour? Do you feel apprehensive about how this material will be received? That some fans might just want the screaming songs?

Honestly, I think our audience is going to be accepting. The show is going to have a lot more [dynamism] now with these new songs. Overall, the picture will be more interesting and varied.

But there's a ton of thought going into the technical aspect of it. We got together a couple of months ago to run the songs as we'll be doing them. Everyone has in-ear monitors now and we have a totally different amp setup with tons of different pedal and synth configurations now. There's a click track, which we've never done before. So, there's different bridges to cross. 

If anything, that's where the nerves are coming from. But we have a lot of time and we are typically well-prepared people, so I feel really good. I feel mostly excited to play shows and see friends and see the country and hopefully see the world at some point soon and just get on with it.

And just play music without being a conversation piece?

If there's anything I want from people or from the record, it's just to take some time with it and to really listen to it. We put a lot of work into it. It's very detailed. When people receive the package, that aspect is very detailed as well. 

And it doesn't really need to be more than that. It's just a record.

The above was drawn from two conversations and has been lightly edited for clarity.

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When Code Orange's Jami Morgan came to work with Steve Albini, he knew that he and the band had to be prepared. They knew what they wanted to do, in which order, and "it went as good as any process we've ever had — probably the best," he glowed.

And a big part of that was that Albini —  a legendary musician and creator of now-iconic indie, punk and alternative records —  didn't consider himself any sort of impresario. 

"The man wears a garbage man suit to work every day," Morgan previously told GRAMMY.com while promoting Code Orange's The Above. "It reminds him he's doing a trade… I f—ing loved him. I thought he was the greatest guy."

The masterful The Above was released in 2023, decades into Albini's astonishing legacy both onstage and in the studio. The twisted mastermind behind Big Black and Shellac, and man behind the board for innumerable off-center classics, Steve Albini passed away on the evening of May 7 following a heart attack suffered at his Chicago recording studio, the hallowed Electrical Audio. He was 61. The first Shellac album since 2014, To All Trains, is due May 17.

Albini stuck to his stubborn principles (especially in regard to the music industry), inimitable aesthetics and workaday self-perception until the end. Tributes highlighting his ethos, attitude and vision have been flowing in from all corners of the indie community. The revered label Secretly Canadian called Albini "a wizard who would hate being called a wizard, but who surely made magic."

David Grubbs of Gastr Del Sol called him "a brilliant, infinitely generous person, absolutely one-of-a-kind, and so inspiring to see him change over time and own up to things he outgrew" — meaning old, provocative statements and lyrics.

And mononymous bassist Stin of the bludgeoning noise rock band Chat Pile declared, "No singular artist's body of work has had an impact on me more than that of Steve Albini."

To wade through Albini's entire legacy, and discography, would take a lifetime — and happy hunting, as so much great indie, noise rock, punk, and so much more passed across his desk. Here are five of those albums.

Pixies - Surfer Rosa (1988)

Your mileage may vary on who lit the match for the alternative boom, but Pixies — and their debut Surfer Rosa — deserve a place in that debate. This quicksilver classic introduced us to a lot of Steve Albini's touchstones: capacious miking techniques; unadulterated, audio verite takes; serrated noise.

PJ Harvey - Rid of Me (1993)

Some of Albini's finest hours have resulted from carefully arranging the room, hitting record, and letting an artist stalk the studio like a caged animal.

It happened on Scout Niblett's This Fool Can Die Now; it happened on Laura Jane Grace's Stay Alive; and it most certainly happened on PJ Harvey's Rid of Me, which can be seen as a precedent for both. Let tunes like "Man-Size" take a shot at you; that scar won't heal anytime soon.

Nirvana - In Utero (1993)

Nirvana's unintended swan song in the studio was meant to burn the polished Nevermind in effigy.

And while Kurt Cobain was too much of a pop beautician to fully do that, In Utero is still one of the most bracing and unvarnished mainstream rock albums ever made. Dave Grohl's drum sound on "Scentless Apprentice" alone is a shot to your solar plexus.

"The thing that I was really charmed most by in the whole process was just hearing how good a job the band had done the first time around," Albini told GRAMMY.com upon In Utero's 20th anniversary remix and remastering. "What struck me the most about the [remastering and reissue] process was the fact that everybody was willing to go the full nine yards for quality."

Songs: Ohia - The Magnolia Electric Co. (2003)

When almost a dozen musicians packed into Electrical Audio to make The Magnolia Electric Co., the vibe was, well, electric — prolific singer/songwriter Jason Molina was on the verge of something earth-shaking.

It's up for debate as to whether the album they made was the final Songs: Ohia record, or the first by his following project, Magnolia Electric Co. — is a tempestuous, majestic, symbolism-heavy, Crazy Horse-scaled ride through Molina's troubled psyche.

Code Orange - The Above (2023)

A health issue kept Code Orange from touring behind The Above, which is a shame for many reasons. One is that they're a world-class live band. The other is that The Above consists of their most detailed and accomplished material to date.

The band's frontman Morgan and keyboardist Eric "Shade" Balderose produced The Above, which combines hardcore, metalcore and industrial rock with concision and vision. And by capturing their onstage fire like never before on record, Albini helped glue it all together.

"It was a match made in heaven," Morgan said. And Albini made ferocity, ugliness and transgression seem heavenly all the same.

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What is about the Beatles' Let it Be sessions that continues to bedevil diehards?

Even after their aperture was tremendously widened with Get Back — Peter Jackson's three-part, almost eight hour, 2021 doc — something's always been missing. Because it was meant as a corrective to a film that, well, most of us haven't seen in a long time — if at all.

That's Let it Be, the original 1970 documentary on those contested, pivotal, hot-and-cold sessions, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg. Much of the calcified lore around the Beatles' last stand comes not from the film itself, but what we think is in the film.

Let it Be does contain a couple of emotionally charged moments between maturing Beatles. The most famous one: George Harrison getting snippy with Paul McCartney over a guitar part, which might just be the most blown-out-of-proportion squabble in rock history.

But superfans smelled blood in the water: the film had to be a locus for the Beatles' untimely demise. To which the film's director, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, might say: did we see the same movie?

"Looking back from history's vantage point, it seems like everybody drank the bad batch of Kool-Aid," he tells GRAMMY.com. Lindsay-Hogg had just appeared at an NYC screening, and seemed as surprised by it as the fans: "Because the opinion that was first formed about the movie, you could not form on the actual movie we saw the other night."

He's correct. If you saw Get Back, Lindsay-Hogg is the babyfaced, cigar-puffing auteur seen throughout; today, at 84, his original vision has been reclaimed. On May 8, Disney+ unveiled a restored and refreshed version of the Let it Be film — a historical counterweight to Get Back. Temperamentally, though, it's right on the same wavelength, which is bound to surprise some Fabs disciples.

With the benefit of Peter Jackson's sound-polishing magic and Giles Martin's inspired remixes of performances, Let it Be offers a quieter, more muted, more atmospheric take on these sessions. (Think fewer goofy antics, and more tight, lingering shots of four of rock's most evocative faces.)

As you absorb the long-on-ice Let it Be, here are some lesser-known facts about this film, and the era of the Beatles it captures — with a little help from Lindsay-Hogg himself.

The Beatles Were Happy With The Let It Be Film

After Lindsay-Hogg showed the Beatles the final rough cut, he says they all went out to a jovial meal and drinks: "Nice food, collegial, pleasant, witty conversation, nice wine."

Afterward, they went downstairs to a discotheque for nightcaps. "Paul said he thought Let it Be was good. We'd all done a good job," Lindsay-Hogg remembers. "And Ringo and [wife] Maureen were jiving to the music until two in the morning."

"They had a really, really good time," he adds. "And you can see like [in the film], on their faces, their interactions — it was like it always was."

About "That" Fight: Neither Paul Nor George Made A Big Deal

At this point, Beatles fanatics can recite this Harrison-in-a-snit quote to McCartney: "I'll play, you know, whatever you want me to play, or I won't play at all if you don't want me to play. Whatever it is that will please you… I'll do it." (Yes, that's widely viewed among fans as a tremendous deal.)

If this was such a fissure, why did McCartney and Harrison allow it in the film? After all, they had say in the final cut, like the other Beatles.

"Nothing was going to be in the picture that they didn't want," Lindsay-Hogg asserts. "They never commented on that. They took that exchange as like many other exchanges they'd had over the years… but, of course, since they'd broken up a month before [the film's release], everyone was looking for little bits of sharp metal on the sand to think why they'd broken up."

About Ringo's "Not A Lot Of Joy" Comment…

Recently, Ringo Starr opined that there was "not a lot of joy" in the Let it Be film; Lindsay-Hogg says Starr framed it to him as "no joy."

Of course, that's Starr's prerogative. But it's not quite borne out by what we see — especially that merry scene where he and Harrison work out an early draft of Abbey Road's "Octopus's Garden."

"And Ringo's a combination of so pleased to be working on the song, pleased to be working with his friend, glad for the input," Lindsay-Hogg says. "He's a wonderful guy. I mean, he can think what he wants and I will always have greater affection for him.

"Let's see if he changes his mind by the time he's 100," he added mirthfully.

Lindsay-Hogg Thought It'd Never Be Released Again

"I went through many years of thinking, It's not going to come out," Lindsay-Hogg says. In this regard, he characterizes 25 or 30 years of his life as "solitary confinement," although he was "pushing for it, and educating for it."

"Then, suddenly, the sun comes out" — which may be thanks to Peter Jackson, and renewed interest via Get Back. "And someone opens the cell door, and Let it Be walks out."

Nobody Asked Him What The Sessions Were Like

All four Beatles, and many of their associates, have spoken their piece on Let it Be sessions — and journalists, authors, documentarians, and fans all have their own slant on them.

But what was this time like from Lindsay-Hogg's perspective? Incredibly, nobody ever thought to check. "You asked the one question which no one has asked," he says. "No one."

So, give us the vibe check. Were the Let it Be sessions ever remotely as tense as they've been described, since man landed on the moon? And to that, Lindsay-Hogg's response is a chuckle, and a resounding, "No, no, no."

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Yaya Bey possesses a dizzying talent: The ability to draw everything from reggae to house music into her sonic worldview without it ever feeling anything but inventive.

On her innovative upcoming record Ten Fold, the Brooklyn-based artist tethers her R&B sound to pangs of hip-hop, pop, and soul. She's also attuned to the sound and vibration of her city, a reference point shown as early as her 2016 debut, The Many Alter-Egos of Trill’eta Brown.

Whether on record or in conversation, Bey carries that classic native New Yorker duality: She’s well aware that the city’s constantly evolving energy means that no one perspective could possibly speak for it, but she also knows when it needs her to speak up. 

"People who are born and raised here are like unicorns," the experimental R&B/pop artist says — herself having grown up in Queens, the daughter of Grand Daddy I.U., a member of the legendary hip-hop collective the Juice Crew. So when mayor Eric Adams was at an event while raging Canadian wildfires dyed the city orange and covered it in smoke, she put her thoughts to record with the track, "eric adams in the club." 

That fiery critique is only one of the powerful emotions that fueled Ten Fold; the passing of her father (rapper Grand Daddy I.U.) adds a tragic shade, and her new marriage brings a flash of joy, among other prismatics. While 2022’s grand Remember Your North Star were built on thematic cohesion, Ten Fold’s 16 tracks are cathartic  in their ability to bound between extremes and find life’s most powerful moments. "I was experiencing success and grief at the same time, and that set the tone," Bey says of creating the new album.

While she’s continued experimenting as a visual artist and poet, Bey's work as an activist — including time as a street medic at protests — demonstrates the real-world ties to all of that expressive work. "It made me really focus on my responsibility to my neighbor and how I exist in the world, loving and caring not just about myself, but about the collective struggle," she says.

Bey spoke with GRAMMY.com about finding the creative energy to manage all of those practices, weaving her father’s voice into Ten Fold, and the state of music played at New York cookouts.

I need to thank you for "Sir Princess Bad Bitch" because it will never stop repeating in my head! It’s such an incredible track. Did you know you'd hit it out of the park when you were in the studio?

Well, Corey Fonville, who's the drummer in [jazz quintet] Butcher Brown, produced the track and he sent it to me. And I was like, "Wow, I'm about to do a house record?" 

I'd done dance records before, but this one felt different. The words and the melody, it came so easily that it felt right. That's usually how I gauge if something is the right song for me, if the melody and the words come quick. I have that kind of chemistry with Corey. 

If the lyrics and the melody meet in the way this album does, pushing inclusive, all-encompassing empowerment, that must feel so encouraging as an artist. 

You know, when I was making this album, my dad passed away in December of ‘22. And that happened, like, right as I put out another album called North Star. 

That album sort of shifted me into a space where [I was] making a living off of my art, and people are interested in me, and I got a publishing deal, and I went to Europe to play some gigs for the first time in about November. I stayed for a month and I came home and my dad died. 

Right when that happened, I was presented with the option to renew my record deal and put another album out. So I started working on it almost immediately after he died. I went through 2023 making the album and I had to find light. So I put in a lot of songs just trying to encourage myself.  

I’m so sorry. My heart breaks for you. I lost my dad in 2021, right before I started a massive project, and it shifted my process completely. Is that why the album starts with "crying through my teeth."? You’re expressing your grief before anything else.

Yeah. I usually start my other projects with a little rap. But I knew that this project was different and I needed to start it out setting the tone. We're starting out in a dark place and then we try to journey out of it.

 And then you incorporated your father's voice in the intro to some of the songs, like on "east coast mami." How did it come to you to bring his memory into the album? 

To be honest, especially during this process, I’ve just been trying to keep whatever I can from him. One day, I was trying to find voice notes from him. My phone had deleted all of our text messages and thank God I had some screenshots of it. I was looking for what I had left, and I had these voice notes.

It’s difficult enough to determine what message you want to convey with any album, but then having this grief, this audible connection to your dad, must have been a lot to consider.

Yeah. The album is also about more than the grief. My albums are more thematic; this album isn't thematic as much as it was just my life turned upside down. My dad was my best friend. And at the same time, my dad was also a musician and I followed in his footsteps. But in the blink of an eye, I was living a completely different life.

My life changed overnight when I made North Star. I was three months behind on my rent, and in the blink of an eye I had money to pay my rent for the year if I wanted. I had got all these things that I thought I was going to share with my dad. I got married. My whole life just shifted. And so the album is like, documenting that. I had no control. I just had to go with the ebbs and flows of life and make songs as I went along.

Both the good and bad, how do you think all that change affected your actual music? Even just in your quality of life, being exposed to different things. 

I think it gave me more perspective, for sure. I've seen more of the world, I've experienced new things. I can write from a place of joy, too. I made [North Star] in despair, and I'm not in despair anymore. You have more things to write about when you’re not three months behind on rent, not in a relationship with some guy that's driving you crazy. 

Between your music, poetry, visual art, mutual aid work, you're outputting so much creative and connected energy into the world. Were you ever wary of not being able to tackle those things, especially while going through multiple different shifts in your life? 

To be honest, I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to make an album again. I did have those thoughts. But I find that if I just show up, like, I'm going to just tell what's true for me, I'll probably be fine. And it's still working out in that way.

It's still cathartic. It’s still just trying to feel something, express something, even with the dance records, just trying to tap into something that feels good. 

Speaking of those dance records, were there any particular artists you were channeling when developing your take on that sound? 

Phyllis Hyman and Frankie Beverly are really big inspirations for me. Growing up in New York, when you go to cookouts, Black people, they play Frankie Beverly, they play Alicia Myers, they play Phyllis Hyman. It's a certain sound that you're gonna hear at a cookout. I just grew up with the sound. Phyllis Hyman is iconic.

I think that dance music has a long history in that debate about art produced in troubled times. Speaking of, we’ve got to talk about "eric adams in the club", which is a phrase I never thought I'd get to say in an interview. Did you go into the writing process wanting to write about Eric Adams to a dance beat, or was that more serendipitous in the studio? 

Last June there was a wildfire in Canada, and it impacted the air quality in New York. He was in the club with Robert De Niro. And I remember thinking to myself, like, Yo, this is insane. Being a New Yorker, seeing how much people's rent raised when they decided it wasn't a pandemic anymore, in a matter of months — it sent the city into a housing crisis, and he refused to address it. And then that wildfire thing happened, and I was like, Oh, yeah, I'm gonna write a song about this guy, but I want it to be a club record because he's in the club. 

New York is an interesting city. It doesn't care about its natives, in a way that is unique. Gentrification happens everywhere, but the way that it happens in a city like New York is that people who are born and raised here are like unicorns. And there are a lot of things that happen that we don't have a voice on. 

I've also been grieving the city that I grew up in, that it doesn't even exist anymore because of people like Eric Adams. The city is more than just the restaurants and things like that. It's the people and the people that create the culture. And if that's pushed out, it's not even what it was anymore, it's something new. 

Obviously there's so many things that need to change, but by being a musician and being an artist, how do you feel like you can shift some mindsets? 

I think I can have the conversations or make the music that starts conversations. I was listening to a lot of Frankie Beverly and Maze when the pandemic was at its height, and [that was] focused on unity a lot. If you listen to, like, "We Are One," "Happy Feelin’s," their message is love, their message is unity. And it got me through the pandemic. I couldn't stop listening to it. 

It made me really focus on my responsibility to my neighbor and how I exist in the world, loving and caring not just about myself, but about the collective struggle. And they did it in such a beautiful way that I kept coming back to listen to the music again and again and again.

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