Iain Burgess (24 November 1953 – 11 February 2010) was an English record producer and audio engineer. He helped define the sound of the Chicago
post-punk
Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of music that emerged in late 1977 in the wake of punk rock. Post-punk musicians departed from punk's fundamental elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a broader, more experiment ...
music scene in the 1980s and early 1990s. Burgess worked with a number of key underground bands including:
Big Black
Big Black was an American punk rock band from Evanston, Illinois, active from 1981 to 1987. Founded first as a solo project by singer and guitarist Steve Albini, the band became a trio with an initial lineup that included guitarist Santiago Dur ...
Toothpaste
Toothpaste is a paste or gel dentifrice that is used with a toothbrush to clean and maintain the aesthetics of Human tooth, teeth. Toothpaste is used to promote oral hygiene: it is an abrasive that aids in removing dental plaque and food from th ...
Green
Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a com ...
Poster Children
Poster Children is an American indie rock band formed at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1987.Bhopal Stiffs.
Burgess was a native of
Weymouth, Dorset
Weymouth ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the Dorset (district), Dorset district, in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. Situated on a sheltered bay at the mouth of the River Wey, Dorset, River Wey, south of the county town of ...
, England.
His "Chicago sound" was described by the ''
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...
'' as: "built on no-nonsense elements: powerhouse drumming, prominent bass lines, and bold guitars that split the difference between anthemic and anarchic." The ''
Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily nonprofit newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has long held the second largest circulation among Chicago newspaper ...
'' described it as: "a massive, crunching, live-and-in-your-face sound". It was a sound that influenced Burgess' friend and student
Steve Albini
Steven Frank Albini (; July 22, 1962 – May 7, 2024) was an American musician and audio engineer. He founded and fronted the influential post-hardcore and noise rock bands Big Black (1981–1987), Rapeman (1987–1989) and Shellac (band), ...
.
Burgess also worked with the Defoliants, Heavy Manners, the Cows, the Didjits,
Breaking Circus
Breaking Circus was a post-punk band from the 1980s, based in Chicago and later Minneapolis, founded by guitarist and vocalist Steve Björklund.
History
Björklund had played guitar and sang for Chicago punk band Strike Under after a short stin ...
,
Jawbox
Jawbox is an American post-hardcore band from Washington, D.C., formed in 1989. The band currently consists of J. Robbins (vocals/guitar), Kim Coletta (bass), Zach Barocas (drums), and Brooks Harlan (guitars/vocals). The original lineup consis ...
, Heliogabale, Daria, Les Clowns, Papier Tigre, Mega City Four, and many others.
Burgess moved to Europe in the early 1990s and worked at Black Box (his own recording studio in rural France, Black Box Recording Studio - La Dionnaie - 49520 Noyant la Gravoyere - France.)
Burgess died in France on 11 February 2010 of a
pulmonary embolism
Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a blockage of an pulmonary artery, artery in the lungs by a substance that has moved from elsewhere in the body through the bloodstream (embolism). Symptoms of a PE may include dyspnea, shortness of breath, chest pain ...