Iain Burgess

Who was Iain Burgess?

Iain Burgess was an English record producer and audio engineer. He helped define the sound of the Chicago post-punk music scene in the 1980s and early '90s, working with a number of key underground bands, including Big Black, Naked Raygun, The Effigies, Get Smart!, Ministry, Bloodsport, Pegboy, Poster Children, and Bhopal Stiffs.

A native of Weymouth, Dorset, England, Burgess defined a “Chicago sound”, described by the Chicago Tribune as "built on no-nonsense elements: powerhouse drumming, prominent bass lines, bold guitars that split the difference between anthemic and anarchic"; the Chicago Sun-Times described it as a "massive, crunching, live-and-in-your-face sound". It was a sound that influenced Burgess' friend and student, Steve Albini.

Burgess also worked with the Defoliants, Heavy Manners, the Cows, the Didjits, Breaking Circus, Jawbox, Heliogabale, Daria, Les Vilains clowns, Papier Tigre and many others. Burgess moved to Europe in the early ‘90s, working at Black Box, his own recording studio in rural France.

Burgess died in France on February 11, 2010 of a pulmonary embolism, a complication of pancreatic and liver cancer.