Lungs

12" EP released in 1982 on Ruthless (RRBB02), reissued in 1992 on Touch and Go (TG89)

Uh, "formative" is the nicest way to describe this. It sounds like something a pencil-necked loser who was into new wave might whip up with some help from a drum machine, and basically that's what it is--Steve Albini fucking around with a drum machine and a 4 track. Some of the songs were actually pretty good with an honest to god BAND backing them up (Steelworker, Dead Billy, and RIP in particular), but Steve's feeble solo effort does them no justice.

This bears about as much resemblance to Big Black as the Eagles do...

The first hundred or so copies were cut and glued by Steve and Jon Babbin (the Effigies' manager). Some copies had cool inserts (razor blades, hair, blood, bazooka Joe comics, pictures of dead people, bumper stickers, PIL tickets and other miscellaneous crap), some didn't.

reviews:

This Chicago band produce an original sort of quasi-industrial sound reminiscent of early PERE UBU and DEMENTIA PRAECOX. There's all sorts of weird frills and noises that suggest hammers hitting anvils and pistons driving machines. But don't think these guys are arty--their music has a vague punky sensibility and primal hypnotic rhythms. If depressed factory towns like Gary, IN ever need a theme song, they should turn to BIG BLACK. (Jeff Bale, Maximum RockNRoll 4)

I got kicked out of my first band and that weekend I bought a guitar and immediately started recording the first Big Black record. It was pretty horrible because it was pretty self-obsessed....At that point I was just satifying my curiosity about what it was like to make records.
--Steve Albini, NME 1992/11/07