Although I’m signed up for RSS feeds, newsletters and carrier pigeon notification of all new news regarding everything Nine Inch Nails, I need to offer thanks, praise and burnt offerings to Lyle for letting me know about the recently released, freely downloadabubble album from Trent and the boys: The Slip. This is the second time this year that NIN have given away music for nothing, the first being the 36 track instrumental collection collectively collated together under the title “Ghosts I-IV” which I bought – yes bought – because a) I like having the physical media 2) I’ve been being entertained by NIN for most of my adult life and they deserve my money iii) I’m a completist and have just about everything they’ve officially released (Halos 1 through 26 with a couple of omissions) and d) because I can.
I’ve yet to listen to either so far as I’ve been assaulting my aural canals with lashings of Jim Thirlwell in the guise of Foetus (the album being Vein, the Love remix release) and his alter-ego creator of instrumental soundtracks for films that don’t exist, Manorexia (the album in question this time being the 2002 release, The Radiolarian Ooze). I’d heard a lot of negative things about Vein but so far I’m liking it quite a bit.
I only wish that people would stop saying that NIN are doing a Radiohead! While that bunch of miserable bar stewards certainly got all the attention-grabbing headlines when they released “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” or whatever the Hello Dolly! it was called, popular beat combo, “The The”, released their (his) last album, NakedSelf, on the internet, in Moving Picture Experts Group Audio Layer 3 encoding for free after falling out with Universal/Interscope (as evidenced by his library archive here) and avant-garde Teutonic Industrialists Einstuerzende Neubauten (who else) have been releasing stuff over the internet off their own back and without a distributor for, oh, quite some time now. Admittedly, it’s mostly for those who have paid to be a subscriber but considering the nature of their music and the tools required, that’s what it takes.
Anyway, the floor is open for anyone who has listened to either Ghosts or The Slip to discuss their thoughts on it’s quality and any other random musings their deranged minds might meander upon.
12/05/2008 at 11:08 pm Permalink
I’ve heard both about ten times. The Slip is fantastic. Ghosts is great background music, but The Slip is just a no-nonsense badass gem of a record, a la Broken. Drop everything and jump right in. Ghosts will be useful when you are writing and don’t want lyrics to interrupt you. The Slip is just awesome for thrashing your head in the car. It’s great. The last four tracks are gold. GOLD! Last track rules.
13/05/2008 at 7:27 am Permalink
I’d agree with Destructor so far – Ghosts is great for background music (I use it a lot while working at the mo, for good or bad) and Slip is just awesome, a real throwback to NIN of old.
No bad thing.
13/05/2008 at 8:53 am Permalink
I listened to The Slip last night and yeah, pretty good. There’s one track that I did notice as being particularly up my dark, damp and slightly turgid alley which may have been “The Four Of Us Are Dying” but until I listen to it again, I won’t know for sure. Will burn a copy to listen to in the car.