What happened here?
Tucked into 50 acres of private forest outside the small town of Cannon Falls, Minnesota, Pachyderm Studios opened in 1988 and quickly developed a reputation as one of the finest residential recording facilities in the United States. The studio's isolation — surrounded by woods, an hour south of Minneapolis, with no distractions — made it ideal for bands looking to lock themselves away and make a record.
In February 1993, Nirvana arrived with engineer Steve Albini to record what would become In Utero, their raw and confrontational follow-up to Nevermind. The sessions were completed in just six days — Albini pressed record on 13 February and finished his mix by 26 February. Kurt Cobain later called it "the easiest recording we've ever done." The result was abrasive, uncompromising, and exactly the antidote to mainstream polish that the band wanted.
Albini had already worked at Pachyderm a few months earlier, recording PJ Harvey's Rid of Me — another album defined by its visceral intensity. He recommended the studio to Nirvana. Other records made at Pachyderm during its 1990s peak include the Wedding Present's Seamonsters, Superchunk's Foolish, and Live's Throwing Copper.
After falling into disrepair in the mid-2000s, Pachyderm was purchased by engineer John Kuker in 2011, who carefully restored it with period-appropriate materials. The studio is fully operational again and available for bookings, sitting quietly in the same stretch of Minnesota forest where Cobain, Novoselic, and Grohl made one of the last great punk records of the twentieth century.