A year ago -- December 2015 -- Trent Reznor promised he'd release new Nine Inch Nails music in 2016. Just days ago Rolling Stone pinned down Reznor to ask him whether he'd meet his deadline, to which Reznor responded "wait and see what happens." Well, it turns out Reznor is making good on his promise -- today NIN announced a slew of exciting things, not the least of which is the band's first new music since 2013's Hesitation Marks. A new five song EP titled Not The Actual Events will be released December 23rd. According to Reznor:
"It's an unfriendly, fairly impenetrable record that we needed to make. It's an EP because that ended up being the proper length to tell that story."
Reznor also announced that "Definitive Editions" of Broken, The Downward Spiral, and The Fragile will be released on vinyl in the spring. The reissues include "careful remastering of the audio from the original sources, a painstaking recreation of the artwork...No extra bullshit and gimmicks – the ‘real’ records in their truest form."
Fans of 1999's the Fragile have even more to get excited about -- an expanded edition of the album titled The Fragile: Deviations 1 will be released as a limited edition 4LP set with 37 bonus tracks! Reznor explains:
"I was going through a turbulent time in my life when making it and revisiting it has become a form of therapy for me. As an experiment, I removed all the vocals from the record and found it became a truly changed experience that worked on a different yet compelling level.
The Fragile: Deviations 1 represents Atticus and I embellishing the original record with a number of tracks from those sessions we didn’t use before...the result paints a complimentary but different picture we wanted to share."
All the NIN releases are available to pre-order now from the band's webstore. The vinyl editions will ship in the spring; digital formats will be available to download on December 22nd.
Finally, Reznor shared his thoughts on the physical experience of vinyl -- read his "vinyl mission statement" below:
"Vinyl has returned to being a priority for us - not just for the warmth of the sound, but the interaction it demands from the listener. The canvas of artwork, the weight of the record, the smell of the vinyl, the dropping of the needle, the difficulty of skipping tracks, the changing of sides, the secrets hidden within, and having a physical object that exists in the real world with you… all part of the experience and magic.
Digital formats and streaming are great and certainly convenient, but the ideal way I’d hope a listener experience my music is to grab a great set of headphones, sit with the vinyl, drop the needle, hold the jacket in your hands looking at the artwork (with your fucking phone turned off) and go on a journey with me."
Amen, Mr. Reznor!
Published December 16th, 2016
