NIN live practice video

Check out the new Nine Inch Nails lineup, practicing “1,000,000” here.

EDIT: or wait until Pitchfork’s server recovers from the billions of rabid fanclicks.

EDIT2: or watch it, above.

Opening band sampler for NIN

Nine Inch Nails will begin a new tour in North America in July. Today they released some rehearsal pics on Flickr and a free sampler download-EP with songs from the bands that will open for them.

The latter move seems to have lots of people chattering. Practically speaking it’s not a particularly useful gesture. In these days of MySpace anyone interested in what the opening acts sound like can quickly and easily listen to several tracks, not just the one each on this zip-file download. Even worse, the question mark in the file name for one of the acts (Does It Offend You, Yeah?) is making most file extractors choke on that track.

But from a hype-building point of view, and from a supporting-the-support-acts point of view, it’s a big move. Label-less Trent Reznor continues to use the technology in new and interesting ways.

Giving us The Slip

Trent Reznor is giving a surprise new Nine Inch Nails album away for free. Just to say thanks to fans. And anyone else who wants it.

Go to nin.com (or here, if they change the link on the front page) to download it in a variety of formats, with PDF booklet.

Thanks, pal.

Dancey

A new Nine Inch Nails track called “Discipline” was just released on the web. You can download it for free. It’s a pretty danceable tune.

Fanboys get video go-ahead, go mental

Last week I blogged about NIN releasing a surprise album, Ghosts I-IV. Fans noticed the minimalism of the release: all instrumental tracks, very simple artwork (not much more than colours, really), and no song titles (just thirty-six numbered tracks).

The reason for this was made clear today on nin.com. Trent’s going collaborative again, and is asking for fan submissions of videos to accompany the instrumentals. At some point, they’ll select some of the best and play them back to the public in a sort of online “album film festival”. This is why they went so minimal, so that there would be no influences on what people would create. They’ve partnered with YouTube to do this.

This continues and broadens the fan collaboration theme Trent began by releasing the source files for songs from the last two albums for fan to do their own remixes.

EDIT: and, indeed, multitracks for some songs from Ghosts I-IV have started showing up on the official NIN Remix web page.

Scarily good

The new NIN stealth album that came out yesterday, Ghosts I-IV, is very good. Well, if you like thirty-six instrumental tracks of everything from gentle piano to crunching machine sounds to spooky, ethereal soundscapes, it’s very good. I’m grooving on it, anyway. I like that there are no song titles: the tracks are simply numbered.

There are a lot of other good things about it too, I think:

• It’s being released in three different electronic formats (320 kbps MP3, and FLAC and Apple lossless)
• You can buy it electronic only for only US$5. C’mon, that’s cheap.
• There are three different CD layouts and prices (well, two now: the super-deluxe limited-edition signed version sold out right away).
• It can be downloaded from nin.com or Amazon or torrented (good thing, too, since nin.com was totally unprepared for the volume yesterday).
• It’s released under a Creative Commons license, which means it’s free and legal to share and remix.

It’s certainly getting a lot of web buzz.

Nine Inch Nails do internet album release right: Ghosts I-IV

Nine Inch Nails fans are falling about themselves, overcome with excitement. Trent Reznor has instantly, without any lead-up or fanfare (other than a cryptic “2 weeks” message posted on nin.com), released a new double album on the internet.

Nine Inch Nails presents Ghosts I – IV, a brand new 36 track instrumental collection available right now. Almost two hours of new music composed and recorded over an intense ten week period last fall, Ghosts I – IV sprawls Nine Inch Nails across a variety of new terrain.

Trent Reznor explains, “I’ve been considering and wanting to make this kind of record for years, but by its very nature it wouldn’t have made sense until this point. This collection of music is the result of working from a very visual perspective – dressing imagined locations and scenarios with sound and texture; a soundtrack for daydreams. I’m very pleased with the result and the ability to present it directly to you without interference. I hope you enjoy the first four volumes of Ghosts.”

Full details and info about how to get it here. Excuse me, I have some downloading to do.

H0W L45T Y34R

The new Nine Inch Nails, consisting of remixes from last studio album Year Zero, is called Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D. It’s legally released, on multiple formats, on November 20th.

Of course, it’s leaked today. For more info, check here.

NIN videos

Check out my VodPod, on the right there, for a couple of new live NIN video clips from the current European tour.

NIN Remixes

There’s some confusion in the Nine Inch Nails world.

I’ve blogged in the past about how NIN created an “alternate reality game” for people to uncover in the lead-up to the last album, Year Zero. There were web sites, puzzles, hidden messages on shirts and in songs, and even real-life pretend-event stagings, most of which related to a dystopian future vision that is the theme of the YZ album. That seemed to work pretty well, and got a lot of fan and media attention (although it did not translate into increased record sales).

I’ve also talked about how NIN are releasing the source files for all the songs on this album, to allow people to tinker with the tracks and make their own remixes of the songs. So far, about a third of the songs have been released this way. Everyone, from casual fans to professional artists, has been making remixes.

Finally, Trent Reznor has also said that there will be an official NIN remix album coming, presumably based mostly on the YZ songs.

The thing that has fans in an uproar now is this site that came up yesterday: www.01001001010000010100110101010011010101000101010001000010.com

There is a single link on that page (I’ll let you find it, if you care) that takes you to another page where you can download a couple of YZ remixes, with the hint that there will be more to come. No one’s sure if this is the official remix album from NIN being slowly released, or simply some canny amateur making use of the available remix files and the same guerrilla-style web-design that the game used.

I like the two mixes, so to me that’s all that matters.

EDIT: It does appear that it’s just clever marketing by some remix dude, since one of these mixes has existed for some time on a fan remix site.

Mixed up

As promised, NIN are releasing source files of all the songs from new album Year Zero. Go to the album’s page on the band’s website and you can download four of the album’s tracks in Garageband format (for people on Macs), or three of them as WAV file torrents for those using other music mixing applications. The rest will appear over time.

Let your inner remixer out!

Year Zero reviews

The reviews for Nine Inch Nail’s latest album are now coming through, and they’re the most positive Trent Reznor has had since The Downward Spiral (and even those are mostly positive in hindsight). The LA Times is falling over itself in praise. Even Pitchfork has been relatively kind (in fact, the prose of their review could arguably warrant a higher score).

Zero sum

My Year Zero CD arrived in today’s post. The packaging is okay, with lyrics booklet and photos. The coolest part is the thermochrome CD: it turns colour when it’s warm, like a mood ring. It’s normally a dark green/gray, but your fingers on it and you get white fingerprints. Put it in your hot CD-ROM drive, and it goes completely white.

I’m still enjoying the album a lot. It’s heavy but groovy. I like the differing perspectives the songs are written from: it’s not just Trent whinging about decaying inside anymore.

Year Zero is here

Year Zero, Nine Inch Nails’ new album leaked the other day, just under 2 weeks shy of the official release date.

I’ve listened to it once through. It’s very good: a mixture of the electronic and groovy sounds of Trent’s first album, Pretty Hate Machine, and the musical flourishes he’s developed on his albums since. It’s quite bass-heavy and – to my ears – funky. There are a couple of vocal manipulations that I really, really like. YZ will definitely keep NIN near the top of my favourite artists list.

I look forward to receiving my pre-ordered copy of the CD.

EDIT: I just noticed: if you follow that album link at the start of my post, you can listen to a streamed version of the entire YZ album.

EDIT2: this album should be listened to with headphones.

Survivalism at its worst

Anyone who was reading me back in early 2005 might recall that I blogged about Trent Reznor releasing the source files for two of the singles from NIN’s last album, With Teeth. I think that was a smart move on his part: allowing geeky fanboys to twiddle their own tunes from the originals tracks made them even more obsessive and produced some media buzz besides.

Well, Trent’s at it again with new album Year Zero. The source files for “Survivalism” went up on the band’s webpage the other day (see the March 13th entry) and the remixing has been going full steam ever since. He says he’s going to release every track from the album this way.

One of the benefits of being sick this week is that I can take the time to have a go myself, as I did for the With Teeth tracks, without feeling guilty. I’ve learned that I’m a crap remixer (mainly because I don’t have the patience; if I can’t throw it together in 2 hours, I don’t do it) but it’s fun to do.

You can hear the album version of “Survivalism” here. You can listen to Timinator’s Judgment Day Remix of the song here, or download it here or here. Remember, you get what you pay for.

The Beginning of the End

And thus, NINterlude 2007 comes to an end. Last night’s show was my last for this tour. It was also excellent, although I don’t think it was quite as good as Saturday night’s.

Setlist
The New Flesh/Pinion
Terrible Lie
You Know What You Are? (with Aaron North guitar malfunction)
Sin
March of the Pigs
The Frail
The Wretched
The Beginning of the End (song from the new album: meh)
Heresy
Closer (w/ Only Time breakdown)
Burn
Gave Up
Help Me I Am In Hell
Eraser
The Fragile
Wish
Survivalism (they messed up the intro, restarted)
Suck
Down In It (rap-tastic!)
Hurt
The Hand That Feeds
Starfuckers, Inc.
Head Like a Hole

At the end, Trent said, “We’ll see you in the summer.” I guess they’ll be back to tour the new album. If that means festivals only, I won’t be going. We’ll see.

NINtense

This was easily the best NIN show I’ve been to, and one of the greatest gigs ever.

This was my only time seeing Ladytron. They were okay. Cool in a couple of bits. That art-school electronica is a nice change from bands that have to flail about.

But Trent and the lads rocked an amazing show. The Wed show was really good, but this was a step up. They were intense, the music was right on, and the crowd was really up for it. I’d not heard “Into the Void”, “Mr. Self Destruct” or “The Becoming” live before, so those were a treat. Most of the rest of The Downward Spiral came out, too. In fact, the only significant song we didn’t get was “Ruiner” and we got that on Wednesday, so I can’t complain. I’m glad I got “Last” again, too. I’ve decided I really like new song “Survivalism” live, but not so much “Only” from the last album.

Setlist (thanks to you.know.who for recording and texting it to me)
Pinion
Mr. Self Destruct
Piggy
Heresy
March of the Pigs
Closer (with The Only Time)
The Becoming
Last
Help Me I Am In Hell
Eraser
Reptile
The Frail/La Mer
Into the Void
No You Don’t
Survivalism
Only
Wish
Gave Up
Dead Souls
Hurt
The Hand That Feeds
Head Like a Hole

Aaron air-in’

A review in the Times of the first Brixton NIN show is very positive.

Survivalism video

Yep, it is the “Survivalism” video. You can download versions here, or watch the YouTube version in my Vod:Pod, to the right.

The gig that was

Alright, I’m just back home from seeing Nine Inch Nails in Brixton. I attended with you.know.who. I’ve got a photo of us on my camera, but can’t get it off to post here because you.know.who has borrowed the cable. Your loss.

We gave openers Ladytron a miss. They’re getting pretty poor reviews. I’ll catch them on the weekend.

This was like the NIN greatest hits tour I’d always wanted to see. We were in the middle, pretty well-centred. Good sound. It was awesome. I can’t say how it’s compared to the others on this European jaunt, but it was tasty enough for me. The Brixton Academy is really suck a great venue. Trent apologised for the postponed Brummie show and said his voice was still a bit out of sorts.

There were a lot of older songs I’d never heard before (because they’ve only started playing them, or re-playing them, on this European tour), and that was really, really good.

The crowd was typical London: many too cool for school, but excited and moving without going too mad. I saw no incidents of trouble, and everyone was in a good mood. There were several first-timers beside us who were very excited, and gushed afterwards. Awww.

Setlist:
Somewhat Damaged
Last
Heresy
March of the Pigs
Piggy
Ruiner
Closer (w/ The Only Time breakdown)
Burn
Gave Up
Help Me I Am In Hell
Eraser
Wish
The Big Comedown
Survivalism
Suck
Only
The Day the World Went Away
Hurt
The Hand That Feeds
Head Like a Hole

The only thing that I wanted to hear but didn’t was “We’re In This Together”. They’ll probably bust it out tomorrow when I’m not there. Hopefully I’ll catch it on one of the weekend shows.

There are reports – from a friend who texted and from the web, now that I’m home – that some more USB sticks were found at the venue. More leaked tracks? At the time of posting, there’s speculation that they contain the video for Survivalism. To be continued.