Trent Reznor strikes again.

So, Ghosts I-IV didn’t satisfy your hunger, it wasn’t like a “real” Nine Inch Nails album, it was instrumental, it didn’t count? Well, that’s fine. ‘Cause here’s another Nine Inch Nails album: The Slip, released just last week. And not only can you download it for free, but you couldn’t pay for it if you wanted to. This album is freer than the air you breathe, and Reznor isn’t going to take your money for it. Quite the opposite, in fact: he released it under a share-alike license, meaning he encourages you to remix it, play with it, post it on your blog, put it on your radio show, use it to stimulate your own creativity. Yeah, that Reznor’s a pretty stand-up guy.

Aesthetically, The Slip sounds like a composite of Nine Inch Nails’ last two proper releases, With Teeth and Year Zero. From Year Zero it borrows some of the grit and bombast, mish-mashed together with the occasional tendency towards hooks that made With Teeth so accessible. The result is an album that those not intimately acquainted with Reznor’s output might enjoy alongside those who know all the ins-and-outs. Initiates will likely be drawn to “Discipline” and “Echoplex,” the bouncier cuts from the album, while veterans may gravitate towards the aggression and complexity of “Head Down” and “Demon Seed.”

Nine Inch Nails, “Letting You” (download) (more…)

It would be a lie to say that listening to M83’s Saturdays=Youth is vaguely reminiscent of being transported back to the ’80s. Listening to M83’s Saturdays=Youth is incredibly reminiscent of being transported back to the ’80s. This is meant to be taken precisely as what you’re likely thinking: there were some fun things about music in the ’80s, but there were also some awful things about music in the ’80s.

The opening track is what would be expected for an M83 album — mellow piano melody with string-like synths fading in and out of the background, getting increasingly louder until highly altered female and male vocals enter, an all-together stunning example of modern electro-dream pop done right.

But then “Kim & Jessie” starts and it’s ’80s reminiscing time. It’s all there, most notably the hollow synths and flat drum machine. At first it’s forgivable, though, because it’s like the good bands from the ’80s. Like Duran Duran. Well. Duran Duran’s first album. Anyway. Then, like too many songs from the ’80s, it becomes a little too repetitive and goes on a little too long. But it’s not bad. Just… overkill.

M83, “Kim & Jessie” (download) (more…)