Steve Albini’s Collections of Music, Books, and More Are Going up for Sale

Fans are being given the chance to buy up the contents of ‘Steve Albini’s Closet’ as part of a newly-launched series of weekly sales.

Albini – the prolific musician and recording engineer – passed away unexpectedly in May 2024, leaving behind a lifetime of items collected in the course of his various interests. Now, fans of the influential figure are able to rehome his treasured items into their own respective collections.

The opportunity takes place as part of Steve Albini’s Closet, a newly-launched website which describes itself as an “entity created to distribute the treasures amassed by the late polymath.”

“Steve pursued many fields of interest, and most of them are represented somewhere in his collections,” the website’s description adds.

Administered by former Forced Exposure editor Byron Coley, each item comes accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity signed by Coley himself, who notes that new items will be uploaded to the site each Friday, with proceeds going to benefit Albini’s estate.

The collection includes books, cassettes, singles, CDs, and LPs formerly owned by Albini, alongside zines, shirts, posters and flyers, original art, and both “enthusiasms” and “mysterious bargains.”

“Every Friday, expect 100-200 more, a steady stream of the unusual, the rare, the weird and the overlooked,” Coley notes. “Somewhere in the stacks, about 4,000 pieces wait their turn, plus a corner for the smaller curiosities. 

“No grand plan apart from the slow unveiling of oddities and treasures, week after week, for the next year,” he adds. “Keep your eyes peeled.”

Albini died of a heart attack at the age of 61 on May 7, 2024. He left behind a legacy of lacerating noise punk as the leader of his bands Shellac, Rapeman and Big Black, as well as a long list of credits engineering (he preferred that title rather than “producer”) such landmark albums as PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me, Nirvana’s In Utero, the Pixies’ Surfer Rosa, as well as thousands of others.